The Government is fully committed to the Sláintecare vision of a universal single-tier health and social care system where everyone has equitable access to services based on need, and not ability to pay, where over time, everyone will have entitlement to a comprehensive range of primary, acute and social care services.
Significant recent progress has been made in delivering Sláintecare, Ireland’s 10-year healthcare reform plan, designed to bring the long-term Sláintecare vision into reality. This includes fast-tracking service innovation, new pathways of care, new ways of working and changes implemented rapidly in line with the Sláintecare vision. This demonstrates the benefits of a universal approach and the capacity of the system to change and respond, accelerating many positive aspects of the Sláintecare vision.
The Sláintecare Implementation Strategy & Action Plan 2021–2023 was approved by Government in May 2021 and an end-of-year Progress Report was published in February 2022 setting out key achievements (www.gov.ie/en/publication/0d2d60-slaintecare-publications/#slaintecare-progress-report-2021).
The Sláintecare 2022 Action Plan has also been published in June 2022 (www.gov.ie/en/publication/0d2d60-slaintecare-publications/#slaintecare-action-plan-2022). It was developed based on the Department’s priorities, the approved HSE NSP 2022 as well as the Sláintecare Implementation Strategy & Action Plan 2021–2023.
I have personally witnessed the challenging conditions for patients and staff in emergency departments during recent hospital visits. I have requested that the HSE set out short-term immediate actions to alleviate the pressure on EDs and ensure that our hospitals are ready for winter. I also requested the development of a longer-term plan for reform and improvement of unscheduled care, in line with expected increases in demand driven by population growth and an aging population. This plan will build on the substantial investment over the past two years in initiatives such as additional capacity, more staff, increased home support packages, and greater GP access to diagnostics.
I met with senior officials from the HSE recently and was updated on progress in developing plans and I instructed the HSE to urgently commence the implementation of all feasible short-term actions, in advance of finalising the plans, to mitigate pressure at each ED.
My Department and the HSE will continue to work together to develop a programme building on these measures with a suite of longer-term actions to deliver systemic change to how unscheduled care is delivered. The overarching aim of this programme is to transform unscheduled care delivery across the full patient flow continuum in a structured, systemised and governed manner that is measurable and sustainable.
This programme will adopt a 3-year phased approach and will be developed according to the ‘Five Fundamentals of Unscheduled Care’, which were designed as an integrated framework to support sustainable and scalable unscheduled care improvement in line with the Sláintecare vision and goals.
