Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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794. To ask the Minister for Health if she will confirm previous statements by Ministers for Health that any decisions about reconfiguration of health services in the mid-west will be underpinned by clinical advice; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37335/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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HIQA was requested to conduct a review of urgent and emergency care in the Mid West region with the primary objective of ensuring safe quality acute care. As part of this review, HIQA was requested to consider the case for a second Emergency Department in the context of the population changes in recent years and ongoing pressures at the ED at University Hospital Limerick (UHL).

This review will provide advice to me, as Minister for Health, to inform decision-making around the design and delivery of urgent and emergency healthcare services in the Mid West.

The Terms of Reference (published August 2024) specify that the review is conducted in a programmatic manner, through the delivery of a number of separate work streams. The Terms of Reference state that the review is to determine current evidence-based best practice in the design and delivery of urgent and emergency care services, as applied on a population-wide basis within comparable health services. This involves a structured approach to evidence gathering and synthesis, allied to engagement with relevant clinical and operational experts and clinical leaders for key specialties.

As part of the review, an Expert Advisory Group (EAG) was convened. The EAG comprises of representation from a range of different stakeholder organisations including patient and public representation; healthcare providers, managers and policy makers; as well as clinical and methodological experts. The role of the EAG is to provide access to information and expert interpretation of the evidence, to inform development of the advice.

Therefore, any advice in relation to the reconfiguration of health services in the Mid West and subsequent decisions in that regard will be underpinned by clinical advice.

I look forward to receiving the final report and the advice from HIQA once this important work is completed.