Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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830. To ask the Minister for Health the extent to which he has identified the areas of the most serious pressure for facilities throughout the public hospital sector; his plans and proposals to address inadequacies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24092/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The health system must be considered as a whole system and lack of capacity, staffing or resources in one area can impact on other areas. For acute hospitals to function optimally, services at primary care, in the community and services such as home help and nursing home support must also work well.  The Sláintecare Implementation Strategy 2018 identified a range of challenges for the public health system.

In addition, the 2018 Health Service Capacity Review identified a requirement for an increase of 2,590 acute hospitals beds by 2031, in a health system reform scenario, to support the projected increase in demand for services in the years ahead. 

A Sláintecare Implementation office has been created in the department to drive the Sláintecare Reform programme, and I can confirm that the National Development Plan provides for the full 2,590 beds by 2027.

The COVID 19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented interruption to normal healthcare activity, with both community and acute settings affected. Resuming health and social care services and building our capacity and capability for the pressures of winter 2020/21 and beyond will be particularly challenging in a way that the health service has not experienced in living memory.

In response, the HSE has developed a single overarching plan to set out how it will resume and deliver services (Planning for Health Services Delivery in the Covid-19 Pandemic) in the period to 2021. This overarching plan essentially includes the normal winter plan that would incorporate enhancement to services to cope with winter pressures, but also takes a more strategic approach by considering actions necessary to resume services paused, return reduced services to normal activity and build capacity such that the system can deal with expected demand and pressures to the end of 2021. The intention is that the plan, and the associated investment required, will be considered in the context of the 2021 Estimates process.  In the meantime, and recognising the need to immediately commence those initiatives which will have an impact over the coming winter, the Department and HSE intend to publish a Winter Plan, which will be a subset of the overarching plan. The HSE has identified and prioritised a number of actions to a total limit of €600m to form the basis of this Winter Plan.