Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 10, inclusive, together.

The Cabinet committee on health last met on 12 February 2024 and is scheduled to next meet on 1 July. In addition to the meetings of the full Cabinet and of Cabinet committees, I meet Ministers on an individual basis to focus on different issues. I meet regularly with the Minister for Health to discuss progress and challenges in the area of health, including the Sláintecare reform programme.

Sláintecare is about four main things: making healthcare more affordable; making healthcare more accessible; ensuring better outcomes for patients; and reforming our health service. We are committed to expanding the core capacity of our acute hospitals, with more health professionals and more acute hospital beds. We have added more than 1,000 permanent hospital beds since the Government came into office in 2020. We have increased the total public health sector workforce by more than 28,000 since the beginning of 2020, which includes 9,000 more nurses and midwives, over 4,200 social care professionals and over 3,000 doctors and dentists. These are very significant additional numbers of people working in the health service who are working hard every day.

There is a strong pipeline of capital projects, including several new hospitals and significant new facilities for existing hospitals. Our multi-annual approach to waiting lists resulted in an overall reduction in the number of patients exceeding the Sláintecare targets by 25% since the pandemic peaks. Waiting lists in the Irish health service fell last year for the second year in a row. The figures that matter most are the number of patients waiting longer than the agreed Sláintecare maximum wait time targets of ten to 12 weeks. We had a cross-party consensus, or what was largely cross-party consensus, around health reform in this House, called Sláintecare, that said that people’s wait times should be around ten to 12 weeks. It is, therefore, appropriate that we measure progress in relation to that. We are seeing significant progress on that. The core target of achieving a 10% reduction in patients breaching the Sláintecare wait times was exceeded, with 11% achieved. This covers inpatients, day case, outpatients and GI scopes.

The enhanced community care programme continues to improve healthcare at a more local level and alleviate pressure on hospitals. The majority of community healthcare networks, community intervention teams and community support teams are now in place with the aim of providing care closer to home.

We are also making healthcare more affordable at a time when the cost-of-living crisis is affecting everyone through the removal of hospital inpatient charges, widened eligibility for the GP card and a reduced drug payment scheme threshold, among other things.

The last budget provided funding for hundreds of millions of euro for waiting lists and action on urgent and emergency care; investments in our workforce such as advanced practice, more college and training places and more hospital consultants; the first full-year programme of publicly funded assisted human reproduction services including in vitro fertilisation, IVF; further expansion of the free contraception scheme to include women aged 31; and additional staffing for CAMHS teams to improve access to services and reduce waiting lists.

We all know our health and social care service has its challenges, that is also a global phenomenon, but our systems are responding and have expanded dramatically in recent years. We are treating more people with better outcomes than ever before. Ireland has the highest self-perceived health status in the EU, with 80% of people rating their health as good or very good. Our life expectancy is continuing to increase and is above the international average. Ireland is among a group of seven EU countries where life expectancy is above the age of 82. We continue to reduce mortality rates for stroke and many cancers and report positive trends in preventative health. Our age-standardised mortality rates have declined for all causes over the past decade by 10.3%.

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