Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree. The way healthcare in this country is funded generally needs a radical overhaul. For example, most of our hospital and community services are funded through a block grant. We give hospital managers a certain amount of money for the year regardless of what happens in their hospital, how many patients they treat or how much innovation they do. Instead, we should be saying to the HSE, or the section 38 and section 39 organisations, that we are paying for services. We should be commissioning services and paying per patient, or for each person supported in addiction services, for example. If at the end of the year they are a few people short and there is extra money, we would not simply pay them less next year because we would be funding this amount of service. The Deputy's points are very well made, not just with regard to addiction and community services but services right across the healthcare system.

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