Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Of course I am delighted to give Deputy Breathnach that assurance. Everything all of us want to do in healthcare is to improve patient outcomes. That has to be at the absolute centre of what we do . As Deputy Breathnach knows very well, cardiovascular disease remains the commonest cause of death in Ireland. One of the ways we must address it is through prevention, with population-based approaches that target the entire population as well as those high-risk groups. We need to focus on issues such as obesity, particularly central waist obesity, and cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure, heart attack and angina. I fully agree everything has to be about improving patient outcomes.

I would point out to the Deputy who has a particular interest in this, to his constituents and to the healthcare professionals he referenced that the national review of specialist cardiac services, which I have asked Professor Philip Nolan, the President of NUI Maynooth, to chair and which includes two representatives of the Irish Heart Foundation, making sure the patient's voice is heard, and a number of other professionals, is an opportunity for us as a country, much like we have done in the area of cancer, to map out a roadmap of where we want to be to ensure the best possible outcomes for cardiac patients over a five and ten-year period, so we can make the same progress in cardiovascular disease that we have made, thankfully, in other areas including cancer. I will be delighted to work with the Deputy on it.

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