Results 13,441-13,460 of 24,635 for speaker:Mary Harney

Ambulance Service. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: I hope the ongoing deliberations between SIPTU which is raising issues in this regard, the HSE and Dublin Fire Brigade will be resolved. That is what I said. I do not have figures for the breakdown of the 50 new ambulances being provided this year but I will make them available to the Deputy when I get them.

Hospital Staff. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: I propose to take Questions Nos. 85 and 148 together. Negotiations between health service employers and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, IHCA, on new contractual arrangements for medical consultants came to a successful conclusion on 24 January 2008. While the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, withdrew from the talks on 22 January 2008, it engaged in subsequent dialogue with Mr....

Hospital Staff. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: I do not accept that there are many issues outstanding. The agreement was reached and announced in good faith and was signed off on by Mr. Connaughton. As the Deputy is aware, we do not have agreement with the IMO. There were a number of issues in respect of which tidying up exercises were required. One of these related to academic consultants and another to emergency consultants and the...

Hospital Staff. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: The Deputy misunderstands. These posts are not being funded by additional revenue. The idea is that we suppress junior posts to create senior ones. All bodies acknowledge that we need 6,000 hospital doctors, 4,000 consultants and 2,000 juniors. We have 4,000 juniors and 2,000 consultants. The Deputy knows from his own experience that suppressing the cost of many of the non-consultant...

Hospital Staff. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: The move from 4,000 non-consultant hospital doctors to 4,000 consultants should be cost-neutral. This has been the subject of discussion for many years. It is not a question of keeping the 4,000 non-consultants and having 4,000 consultants as well. The Health Service Executive will receive an additional €1.1 billion during 2008. There are transitional arrangements for the incumbents...

Hospital Staff. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: We would have reached agreement with the consultants a long time ago if we had simply agreed with everything that everybody sought but there is give and take in negotiation. It was no different here and access to public hospitals for public patients was crucial to negotiating a new contract so that there would be one for equality of access to diagnostics, outpatients and so on. That is...

Hospital Staff. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: I dealt with this earlier today. It is a matter of great concern, especially for cancer care, and Professor Keane is in discussions with the professional organisations, particularly the Irish College of General Practitioners, about the form of referral so that we can separate what would be broadly called urgent from routine cases. There are protocols and best practice models in place in...

Hospital Staff. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: Part of the new contract includes longer working days and cover for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where required. We will not be funding the substantial overtime bills that we fund at the moment. These have arisen because of the manner in which we have employed consultants in the past. It is often the case that because consultants work across several different sites ward rounds are...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: Under the Health Act 2004, the Health Service Executive, HSE, must prepare and submit a national service plan, NSP, each year in accordance with any directions from the Minister. The NSP must, among other things, indicate the type and volume of health and personal social services to be provided. The NSP for 2008 was submitted to me on 19 November 2007 by the chairman of the HSE board. In...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: A 9% increase is considerable. Ireland has been increasing current spending on health over the past decade faster than any country in the OECD, yet we have one of the youngest populations in the world. Only 11% of the population is over 65, as against 17% in the UK and 27% in Germany. The HSE has to manage its budget in accordance with the money voted for it by the Oireachtas. We cannot...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: We have made it clear. The HSE has put procedures in place — I am sure we will discuss this in the morning at the Joint Committee on Health and Children — to ensure that moneys identified for mental health, A Vision for Change and disabilities are spent in those areas. The employment ceiling is obviously important. Some 80% of HSE spending is on staff and, using full-time and wholetime...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: The Deputy has raised a number of issues. Clearly, the preferred health system is one in which more procedures are carried out at community and primary care levels, and 90% of health needs can be met in these areas. This year, primary care teams are being rolled out and additional staff recruited, particularly as regards therapies, to ensure we have the range of expertise at community and...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: We have 2,500 general practitioners, who provide a very good service. People in the UK can wait for up to four or five days to see a GP, while in Ireland it is a same-day service, and a good one. As the Deputy knows, we are training more and more doctors. As I said in a different forum, health care professionals, like others, always do well in a well developed society. The reason we took...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: A very competitive proportion is allocated to each area, be it cancer care, mental illness care, including suicide prevention, or primary care. They are all very worthy causes. The reality is that we have increased funding for health care substantially. The increase the HSE received since it was established, that is, over €4 billion, is more than we spent running the entire service...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: ——was not possible under the former health board regime.

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: On the question on confidence, the HSE is a new organisation and it is not perfect. It is the largest in the country and employs one third of all staff in the public sector. Many of the staff who work in the hospital sector work in voluntary hospitals that are not owned or controlled by the State. I accept they would not be able to function without the resources of the State. A report on...

Health Services. (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: The number has doubled in a relatively short period. I read a story about a patient who fell out of a bed, supposedly because there was nobody on hand to assist. I do not accept a lot of that but that is not to say hospitals could not do with more staff. There has been a considerable investment in resources in the acute hospitals in recent years.

Written Answers — Departmental Reports: Departmental Reports (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) is an independent authority and the management of the investigation referred to by the Deputy is a matter for HIQA. The investigation commenced in June 2007. I understand that HIQA had hoped to publish its report in December but publication had to be deferred to enable further work to be undertaken. I am advised that the draft report is...

Written Answers — Hospital Services: Hospital Services (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: The overriding aim of the North East Transformation Programme is to improve safety and achieve better standards of care for patients in that region. I fully support this objective and I have had many discussions with the HSE about the importance of progressing implementation of this change programme. The HSE also has an obligation to deliver services within its approved funding allocation...

Written Answers — Hospital Services: Hospital Services (5 Mar 2008)

Mary Harney: I propose to take Questions Nos. 91 and 103 together. A Strategic Review of Neurology services in Ireland has been undertaken by the Health Service Executive. The Review was overseen by a multidisciplinary Steering Group whose aim was to identify the current level of service provision and future requirements for neurology and neurophysiology services in Ireland. The specific objectives were...