Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The establishment of the Taskforce is a recognition that despite the unprecedented growth in service provision in the last three years, the health services face considerable pressures, both demographic and inflationary.

The Taskforce will aim to realise savings and maximise productivity across the health services, including, workforce optimisation and procurement. There will also be an emphasis on the future cost of health care, which will consider amongst other things, the impact of demographics and emerging technologies on the health care services of the future.

The Taskforce will compliment ongoing projects in areas such as, the reduction in the health services’ medicines budget, the reduction in both agency and management consultancy costs and the accelerated roll-out of the HSE’s Integrated Financial Management System

A Memorandum for Government in respect of the Taskforce has been prepared for submission to Cabinet for information. It is expected that the memorandum will be submitted to Cabinet in the coming weeks. Work will commence soon on establishing the teams who will have responsibility for driving productivity gains and cost savings across the Taskforce's various strands.