Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 March 2019
216. Deputy Stephen Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the expenditure plan linked to the Sláintecare action plan; the costs by year dedicated to each action point in the plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14477/19]
View answerThe purpose of the Action Plan is to set out a timeline for the delivery of outputs to support the completion of the Sláintecare strategic actions on a programme and project basis. The Action Plan details the outputs that are to be delivered over 2019, with progress to be measured and reported on a biannual basis.
All the actions committed to be delivered in 2019 are intended to be achieved from the existing agreed expenditure estimates for 2019. The actions included in the Sláintecare Action Plan are underpinned by the commitments in the HSE's National Service Plan, which provides detailed breakdowns of 2019 deliverables, alongside costings of these deliverables.
I can confirm that within Programme 4.4, the programme that will manage the Sláintecare budget, a ring-fenced amount of €20 million has been set aside for the establishment of an Integration Fund in 2019. The Integration Fund will focus on supporting the development of existing and new best practice projects that are capable of being scaled nationally, and which promote the engagement and empowerment of citizens in the care of their own health, scale and share examples of best practice and processes for chronic disease management and care of older people and encourage innovations in the shift of care to the community or provide hospital avoidance measures. This Fund was launched on March 22nd, 2019 and project submissions with a focus on community care and integration of care across all health and social care settings are now being sought.
