Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is absolutely not the policy intention, and Deputy Kelleher's assertion in this regard is one of the reasons I have instructed my Department to carry out a review. I have asked the Department of Health to conduct an analysis of trends in private activity in public hospitals since the Health (Amendment) Act commenced in 2013 and I intend then to review policy changes at that stage as well. As the Deputy was already aware when he raised this important matter with me at the Oireachtas health committee, I have undertaken to share this analysis and policy review with him when it is completed. My concern is not for the health insurance company but for the impact on premiums, which I know is the Deputy's concern as well. However, health insurers have expressed some important and legitimate concerns about the use of the private insurance patient form at a hospital level, in particular the manner in which patients are being requested to waive their right to be treated as public patients. It is accepted that there is a need for a consistent and clear approach at hospital level as to how the private insurance patient forum is presented to patients. In this regard, the HSE and the insurance industry will now meet. They have started an engagement, a series of meetings about this, to consider how the forum may need to be reviewed and in what circumstances it should be used. If a vulnerable sick patient is on a hospital bed or waiting in an emergency department, merely waving a form at him or her is not appropriate; there needs to be a clear and consistent protocol in place.

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