Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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172. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 218 of 24 January 2024, the steps he will take to ensure that the review of Community Ophthalmic Services Medical Treatment Scheme is prioritised this year; the detail regarding any meetings carried out by his officials in the last 12 months regarding parameters of this planned review; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4487/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Community Ophthalmic Services Medical Treatment Scheme (COSMTS) was established in 2004 as a pilot project in response to an identified need. The Scheme engages four practices across seven locations to provide medical and minor surgical care to patients outside of the acute care setting. This allows hospitals and eye clinics to focus on treating more complex conditions. The treatments and the current fees payable under the Scheme were agreed in 2013.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) have advised that a detailed evaluation of the current operation of the COSMTS needs to be carried out before it is extended further. This review remains a priority for my Department in 2024. The requirements of this review have been regularly discussed in meetings between officials from my Department and their HSE counterparts as well as internally within my Department. This process is continuing in tandem with the pursuit of other priorities in the provision of appropriate eye care.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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173. To ask the Minister for Health for an overview of how his Department incorporates culture and arts into life in hospitals, care homes, assisted living institutions and healthcare settings, and what work has been done to examine the use of art as therapy. [4503/24]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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There is now a strong international evidence base for the benefits of arts and creativity for health and wellbeing, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) recognising the robust impact of the arts and creativity on both mental and physical health. The WHO has also found that the arts facilitate a more holistic approach to complex health problems, giving parity of esteem to mental health and helping to situate health problems in their social and community context. Furthermore, the WHO has also found that cultural and creative interventions can provide multiple health-promoting benefits and in this way can show equivalent or greater cost-effectiveness than possible health interventions.

The Department of Health (Healthy Ireland Programme) and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (Creative Ireland Programme), HSE and the Arts Council work together to develop creative programming to deliver national health and wellbeing policies and strategies and a shared commitment to supporting positive health and wellbeing outcomes in community and healthcare settings for the public, health service staff, patients, their families and carers, as well as the development of creativity and the arts more broadly.

Working with the Creative Ireland Programme, the HSE and the Arts Council, a range of initiatives have been funded to date to support the use of creative engagement as a tool for the promotion of health and wellbeing at all stages of life at local level for:

• Older people

• Traveller Communities

• Children with long term health conditions

• End of life and bereavement

• Social Prescribing

In addition, my Department’s funding in this area has included the provision of an Artist in Residence for 7 acute hospitals and an expansion of lunchtime music sessions in public areas in 14 acute hospitals for the benefit of both patients and staff, together with the development of a live music performance initiative for older people living in community and/or residential healthcare facilities in partnership with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport & Media.