Patients to be placed at the centre of decision making, ensuring faster, fairer service delivery
Fine Gael Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Health, Jerry Buttimer TD, has welcomed the publication today (Thursday) of the radical healthcare reform document by the Department of Health.
The document, entitled Future Health: A Strategic Framework for Reform of the Health Service 2012-2015, sets out the roadmap for the overhaul of our healthcare services so that value for money and appropriate service delivery can be achieved.
“Future Health details 48 actions for reform; it is aimed at delivering a changed health service which meets the changing needs of our population. There are many challenges facing our health service including an aging population and an increasing incidence of chronic illness. This framework outlines how the health service plans on meeting those challenges.
“The radical reform agenda being carried out by Minister Reilly will not happen overnight. This Government was handed a health service that was creaking at the seams and which had money thrown at it as the solution to all its problems. The Irish people, quite frankly, deserve better.
“It is the Government’s intention to create a single-tier health service which is supported by Universal Health Insurance and where no distinction between public and private patients exists. Outcomes for patients will be improved, free access to GPs will be available, as is the case in other countries, and there will be better management of chronic illnesses.
“We have no choice but to do more with less, but that aside, it is high time we had a healthcare system that worked for, instead of against, us. Healthcare staff, consultants and, most of all, the patient, who should always have been at the heart of the system, deserve it. I have no doubt that this intention can and will become a reality under Dr. James Reilly TD.”