Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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1085. To ask the Minister for Health if he has made changes to the timelines for the delivery of Sláintecare; if so, if he will provide details of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19733/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to the Irish health and social care service resulted in opportunities for implementing Sláintecare at pace.  Many of the initiatives and changed ways of working that have been successfully and rapidly implemented over the past three months in response to the pandemic are aligned with the spirit of the Oireachtas Sláintecare Report. 

Together with innovations piloted through Sláintecare during 2019 the new context provides opportunities.  The Sláintecare Executive Director has prepared a report on learnings from COVID as well as the first full year of implementing Sláintecare, and is focussing on what can be delivered over the next 6 months, the next 18 months and the next three years.

With these timelines identified, priority areas have been developed for Sláintecare implementation and there is an understanding of the significant risks to not proceeding to implement these priorities in a coordinated way, and at pace.  The priorities are to:

1. Keep people well at home or near home, out of hospital, living independent lives, by implementing agreed end to end care pathways between GPs, Community and Hospital services, through Community Healthcare Networks and Specialist Hubs, and a variety of related projects.

2. Help achieve waiting list targets, through implementing the Capacity/Access Plan including devising a multiannual waiting list plan and commissioning ambulatory-elective centres in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

3. Devise a Citizen Care Masterplan for universal eligibility and multi-annual funding using a population-based planning, segmentation, needs and gap analysis approach, by Region, supported by five frameworks: 1) clinical governance, 2) workforce planning, 3) capital planning, 4) eligibility/entitlement, 5) funding.

The specific actions and deliverables for each of these priorities are being finalised at the moment and will require strengthened lines of governance and accountability, as well as resourcing, in order to deliver them at pace.