Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. As I see it, having worked in health care abroad, there is an opportunity here. I have asked some of the most senior people in the HSE to show me the plan or document that sets out how health care delivery should be with regard to primary care centres, community-based teams, home care, respite care and all that good stuff, that sets out what it looks like today, which is an acute-based model, and which sets out how the transition will be made from the model that obtains today to the model we need. That document and thinking have not been done. While primary care centres are opening, which is welcome, and while some valuable things are being done, I put it to the Minister that there is an enormous opportunity for the country for someone to come along - such as the Minister alone or in conjunction with the Minister for Health because this is both a health care and an expenditure issue - to acknowledge we do not have a whole-Ireland strategic view. This was done in Northern Ireland three or four years ago, which now has a strategy that states this is what its desired health care system looks like and this is how it will get there. We do not have one of those and as a final point, I suggest the Minister might consult with the Minister for Health, because I believe this issue crosses both Departments, to ascertain whether experts should be brought in and whether that sort of strategic planning and thinking should be put together.

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