Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 60: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the reports commissioned by her Department from which she expects primary care and hospital services to be guided in the future; the extent to which the ten-year plan, the Brennan report or the Hanly report are expected to form part or all of the strategy; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41372/06]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 328: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the status of plans and reports commissioned or produced by her Department previously, such as the ten-year plan, the Brennan report and the Hanly report; if each, any or all are being implemented at the present time; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41691/06]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 60 and 328 together.

Government policy is to develop health services in all regions of the country to provide safe, high-quality and accessible services that provide the best possible outcomes for patients. My Department has developed a broad range of strategy documents and associated policies to guide it in its work. The progress being made in pursuing these objectives is set out each year in my Department's Annual Report which is available in the Dáil Library and in the HSE's Annual Report which is available on their website.

The Health Reform Programme comprehends Quality and Fairness — The National Health Strategy, The Primary Care Strategy as well as the Prospectus, Brennan and Hanly reports. These reports are guiding the future of the health service in that they lay out the overall direction for the major changes which are now underway in the health services. They culminated in the introduction of the Health Act, 2004, which abolished the health boards and established the HSE in January, 2005 as a mechanism for unitary service delivery in the area of health and personal social services. The HSE together with my Department is implementing the recommendations of the Brennan Report on an ongoing basis in striving to achieve greater accountability, efficiency, consistency, quality and effectiveness in a national context.

The underlying vision guiding the delivery of primary care and hospital services is one which puts the patient or the service user at the centre of a high quality system which is fair, safe and which provides good value for the resources available. This approach will mean rebalancing service delivery so that those services that can be safely delivered locally are delivered locally and in the most appropriate setting with particular regard to the ongoing development of primary care infrastructure at local level as set out in The Primary Care Strategy. The Strategy is a road map for the future development of primary care services in Ireland over a period of some 10 years, both as the appropriate service for the delivery of the majority of people's health and social care needs, and to complement the services provided by acute hospitals.

More complex services that require specialist input must be concentrated at regional hospital settings, or in the case of highly specialised services such as organ transplantation, in national centres of excellence.