Health boards need major overhaul, warns expert

HEALTH boards need to be totally revamped and much of their community care role needs to be transferred to other agencies, a leading expert said yesterday.

The lion’s share of health board spending is not on hospital beds or waiting lists. Up to 57% of spending is on community care, welfare and care of refugees and asylum seekers, civil marriages and providing for the homeless, Association of Health Boards in Ireland chairman Jack Bourke said last night. His comments ahead of today’s annual conference of the association in Kilkenny: “I’ve been talking about health board structures for the past 10 years. When people talk about health boards and health board spending, they talk about hospital beds, waiting lists etc. But the reality is that 57% of our budget goes on community care. This encompasses areas such as supplementary welfare, catering for refugees and asylum seekers and other matters. Health boards have become monoliths, catering for everything from supplementary welfare to care for homeless.

“The Department of Health should create a junior post and take over community care. Then health boards could do what they are supposed to do,” he said.