Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Donnelly for the question. As the Deputy knows, the Government committed to undertaking a health service capacity review in A Programme for a Partnership Government, and this was published last January. This was the first thorough assessment of capacity needs across the health service for more than a decade. In the following month, 2,600 acute beds and 4,500 social care beds were provided for and fully funded in the national development plan, based on the capacity review findings. This is the first commitment to invest in significant additional bed capacity in many years and replaces a trend whereby, even before the troika were in town, we were reducing the number of acute hospital beds in this country.

The review process was robust. It was led by a high level steering group and drew on significant stakeholder engagement and available international and national evidence. Its methodology and findings were then validated by an international peer review group. The projections were based on examining current demand for services and projecting forward on the basis of demographic and other demand factors. The analysis also took account of the potential impact of health and well-being initiatives, a shift in the provision of certain care services from the acute to the community sector and productivity improvements in our hospitals. We all know that major improvements in these areas are needed and outlined in our Sláintecare report, and it is important that capacity is planned around a new model of service delivery and not the current one. I think we agree that if we just increase the bed capacity and do not reform the model of care, the beds will just fill up and we will not manage to create the health service we need to.

The ESRI report referred to, which was funded by my Department, is a valuable addition to our knowledge base for health policy. It contains projections of future demand for health services but does not contain any projections for capacity such as acute beds. The ESRI methodology also takes no account of future changes in models of care or in productivity improvements. It is not possible therefore to get from the ESRI model a figure comparable to the 2,590 in the capacity review report. The baseline projections for demand in both reports, however, are broadly aligned across the range of services examined. I should point out that the ESRI sat on the steering group for the bed capacity review that said we needed 2,590 more acute hospital beds.

I have stated before that I do not believe that capacity increases alone will bring improvements in our health services, but the national development plan investment programme must be matched with a programme of reform to deliver real change. To that end, work on a Sláintecare implementation plan is advancing in my Department and I expect to bring these proposals to Government in the coming weeks.

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