Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 19 Oct 1999

Vol. 509 No. 4

Written Answers. - Hospital Services.

Liz McManus

Question:

242 Ms McManus asked the Minister for Health and Children if the implementation of consistent standards of practice in the care of cardiovascular disease, between and within health board regions, is being undertaken as recommended by the national cardiovascular health strategy report published in July 1999; if emer gency response call times for ambulances are being recorded in all health board areas in view of the importance to survival of timely response; if a simple command and control centre for emergency ambulances is being established in each health board area; and if general practitioners will in future be paid to undertake preventative care of general medical services patients at risk of cardiovascular disease in the same way in which they are paid to treat patients with the disease. [20646/99]

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Cowen)

I would like to assure the Deputy of the Government's commitment to the implementation of the 211 recommendations of the Cardiovascular Health Strategy – Building Healthier Hearts. A major national conference will take place on 5 November where the recommendations contained in the report will be discussed in detail with all of the organisations involved in its planned implementation.

A programme of investment in the ambulance service has been under way since the publication of the report of the review group on the ambulance services in 1993. Approximately £23 million in additional funding has been provided for the implementation of the report's recommendations. The development of more explicit standards for performance measurement is a key element of the implementation of the health strategy in the ambulance service. In this regard, funding has been provided to each health board in 1998 and 1999 for the development of ambulance response times and quality of care monitoring.

As a first step towards routine response times monitoring, I have asked each of the health boards to ensure that response times data for emergency and urgent calls be collected and analysed on a quarterly sample basis. The Deputy should, however, be aware that while response times are an important indicator of performance for ambulance services, it is also important to focus on quality of care and clinical effectiveness. In this regard, a standard patient report form has been introduced to facilitate the development of clinical audit in pre-hospital care. In addition, appropriate clinical care standards underpin that the developments currently taking place are at an advanced stage of development and will be brought into use later this year.

Regional command and control centres are operational in four health board areas and a joint fire and ambulance control centre for the Dublin areas has recently been commissioned. Construction and equipping of regional command and control centres is at an advanced stage in the remaining health boards.

I am committed to the further development of the pre-hospital service in line with the cardiovascular health strategy and will be providing further support to build on the progress to date in this area.

The question of general practitioners involve ment in, and payment for, preventative medicine, including cardiovascular disease, under the General medical services scheme is an issue which is being examined by my Department in consultation with the health boards in the light of this and other preventative initiatives which will be coming on stream in the near future.