John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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837. To ask the Minister for Health further to parliamentary question numbers 239 and 240 of 8 March 2017, and in view of the recent reply (details supplied) if he will address the matter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19406/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Activity Based Funding (ABF) is a new model for funding public hospital care which was introduced in 2016. It involves moving away from inefficient block grant budgets to a new system where hospitals are paid for the volume and quality of care provided, subject to a budgetary limit. Each Hospital in the Programme is allocated an ABF budget and a set of activity targets. These can be altered by the Hospital Group subject to agreement with the Acute Hospitals and Finance Divisions within the HSE. A system of transition payments is in place to assist the less efficient hospitals to adjust. These payments will be phased out over time. The ABF system is currently applied to in-patient and day case services with other services still being funded through the block grant system.

It is important to note that while the new funding model is encouraging hospitals to use resources at their disposal more efficiently, it does not seek to reduce overall expenditure in the acute hospital system. Instead it provides a more transparent funding mechanism and it more fairly rewards hospitals for the activity that they undertake.

In relation to your specific queries regarding University Hospital Kerry, as this is a service matter, I have asked the HSE to respond to you directly.