Health funding ‘to be based on efficiency’

FUTURE funding for the health service will be determined by the quality of patient care, not by those who shout loudest for it, the head of the Health Service Executive (HSE) insisted yesterday.

HSE chief executive, Prof Brendan Drumm, said he wanted to ensure that funding was based on efficiency. He also wants to move patients more quickly through the hospital system.

“In this country you have to remain longer in hospital than you do in any other comparable country for the same condition,” he told RTÉ news.

He said building more local hospitals was not the answer: “Building more of the same without changing the process that allows that to happen is actually not a good use of taxpayers’ money.”

He also defended his call for more Government investment in healthcare which was criticised last week by Department of Health secretary general Michael Scanlon who said it was not part of his brief.

Prof Drumm said he had been extremely careful to state that money should only be spent where it was clearly going to bring about a change in the system.

“I think the Government are very willing to invest money but not in an old system that has not produced the returns they need,” he said.

He also pointed out that the HSE would be solely responsible for funding the health service in 2006.

“We will be putting money where work has been done. We will be rewarding efficiency, not inefficiency.”

He also said that the ill and elderly should be attending community medical services, with hospitals being a last resort.

There were good examples of these one-stop establishments in Skibbereen, Co Cork, and in Virginia, Co Cavan.

“We should only be thinking about hospital in terms of how can we avoid people going there and, secondly, if they do go there how do we get them out as quickly as possible. That should be the focus.”

Referring to public concern over cancer facilities in the northwest, Prof Drumm said it did not make sense to have specialist services replicated all over the country.

The first thing patients with cancer or any other serious condition wanted to know was where they could get the best treatment.

“If we can provide services in this country at any point which are up to the best international standards and can obviously provide them within a reasonable cost then we should be providing them.

“But we should not go back to the old system that operated in this country where everybody shouts loudly for their local service,” he said.