Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly.

The health sector is facing significant funding challenges this year. As a result of the current crisis, the absolute priority must be to place the economy and the public finances on a sustainable footing. However, the Minister is determined to ensure the impact on services is minimised through relentless performance management, best practice and reform in how services are delivered. This will apply in all settings and services and for those delivering such services.

The HSE's national service plan 2012 was approved by the Minister on 13 January and published by the HSE on 16 January. It sets out the health and personal social services that will be delivered by the HSE within its current budget of €13.317 billion and identifies a cost-reduction target in 2012 of €750 million. It reflects the commitments in the programme for Government in respect of health and the savings targets set out in the comprehensive expenditure report for the period 2012 to 2014.

The scale of the financial challenge facing the HSE means that there will be an inevitable and unavoidable reduction in services. However, this will not be a straight line reduction. Waterford Regional Hospital, in line with other acute hospitals, must face the challenge of reduced budgets and align its 2012 activity levels and services to the budget allocated. As a direct result of budgetary and staff reductions nationally, activity levels in 2012 will be expected to fall by approximately 6%. The Minister hopes this can be contained to 3% through increased efficiency, including the effective implementation of the clinical programmes. In this regard, at Waterford Regional Hospital strategic integration is taking place of the acute medicine programme into hospital processes, with further realignment of beds with this model, including those in the medical assessment and acute medical admissions units. Furthermore, the number of short-stay beds and rapid access outpatient clinics is increasing in order to improve admission avoidance. In addition, the productive theatre initiative was introduced in December 2011 and work is advancing at pace in order to maximise patient access. Surgical bed stock realignment will begin in early 2012 to underpin and retain the performance to date in day-case surgery. The hospital is performing consistently well, including in the context of delivering on special delivery unit targets for scheduled and unscheduled care, in the emergency medicine programme. The Minister is satisfied that elective activity targets, while challenging, will be enabled by the successful implementation of the elective surgery programme and the positive theatre initiative.

The HSE's national service plan commits it to minimising the impact on services by fast-tracking new, innovative and more efficient ways of using limited resources. It reflects the need to move to new models of care across all service areas in order to treat patients at the lowest level of complexity and provide quality services at the lowest possible cost. It also includes a commitment to addressing staffing levels, skill mix and staff attendance patterns-rosters within the framework of the public service agreement. The plan will be implemented in the context of the significant new governance structures for the health service recently announced by the Minister.

The HSE is satisfied that Waterford Regional Hospital will deliver on its 2012 service plan without any impact on emergency or urgent care services. The details of the plan are being worked through. The final version of the plan will be available on publication of the regional service plan for HSE South on 9 February.