Results 1,061-1,080 of 8,937 for speaker:Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: I would like to reach the targets in the first instance. The Deputy is right to say that it is small with regard to the overall budget. However, it is tough to achieve each one of those. For example, the changes made this year in regard to the shift to email from post is a €30 million saving but that now has to be implemented. Another example is that there is an opportunity to save...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: I know the Deputy is not.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: It is not as much that. Part of the savings is about staying within profile. For example, the use of a virtual ward, while it might not be a saving cost that I can show the Deputy directly, saves 30 bed nights and those costs help stay within profile as well. All of those things are very important. The outpatient department, OPD, productivity measures, and the more quickly people are...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: It has to be seen in the context. We want agency spend to go down. It is difficult to do that and there should be more conversions to whole-time equivalents, WTEs. At the same time, it is also recognised, as the Deputy has recognised, that there are a number of agency staff for whom it suits to work in agency and it is hard to convert.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Nevertheless, the Deputy is correct.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: It is €420 million.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Two hundred and thirty million euro of that is NTPF. The access to care fund is €190 million.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Let me look at that and reflect on that, in particular with the insourcing review that is coming out. This is exactly the sort of transparency light that I am trying to shine on this practice, not only in itself but in how it intersects with productivity across the board. Many of the savings will be delivered through better productivity as well and that is really where I am trying to drive this.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: I agree.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: We will get that.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: This audit on insourcing will show us what is happening in all of the different hospitals and where. We should be able to see that. I will work towards that.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Of course. We will work through that. Absolutely. It might take me a little time to get that together after the insourcing audit but that is the transparency that we want to have.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: I agree with the Deputy. We are developing a national genomics strategy and that is a key part of that. I would like to discuss that with the Deputy further and get his input on that. We agree there is a lot more opportunity for efficiency, but also better outcomes, through that strategy.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Indeed.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: First, I absolutely recognise the Deputy's more considerable experience in health than mine as a member and Vice Chair of the committee and a former Minister of State. He knows the background to many of these different issues. I answered Deputy Daly in relation to electronic health records but I might ask Mr. Tierney to come in on some of the greater detail.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: That is of particular concern. I look every day at the hospital trolley figures. I am quite aware that in some hospitals, particularly across the west, delayed discharges of care are a key metric in that. For example, I was in Letterkenny on 1 May and there were 46 delayed discharges of care. More recently, it has come down to 34. There is a community nursing unit being built across the...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: What I am saying is we need to build new ones. We need more.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: I could not agree with the Deputy more. That is why I am looking for capital funding for that sort of investment in community nursing homes and step-down facilities of a range of kinds. It is a much more efficient way, from a financial perspective, to look after somebody and a much better way to meet their needs when they no longer need to be in an acute hospital.

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: Not only that, but it is visible in the control room in University Hospital Waterford, where they track the electives coming in, who can be discharged based on this prioritisation of the diagnostics and where specifically they will go. Their integration with the community is one of the major reasons the hospital is being run so well and is able to maintain zero trolleys with the...

Select Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 38 - Department of Health (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill: It is an area I am concerned about. There is a motion in the Seanad today, tabled by Fine Gael Senators, which raises this important concern. Notwithstanding fees to provide public dental having gone up from, I think, €44 million to €69 million and there having been more appointments, it is not meeting the need. From a whole-of-government perspective, between us and the...