Bid to free up hospital beds attracts just two proposals

A GOVERNMENT initiative to free up beds in public hospitals by transferring paying patients to private hospitals located on the same campus has attracted just two proposals despite the lure of tax breaks.

However, neither meets the criteria applied by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in assessing proposals, set out in the Government’s policy document to encourage private investment.

Yesterday, the head of the National Hospital’s Office (NHO) Pat McLoughlin said there was “no business plan on my desk that I’d be happy with in the context of Government policy”.

He said proposals have been received from the Mid-West Regional Hospital in Limerick and Waterford Regional Hospital but they were “outline proposals” and there had been no serious engagement between the hospitals and the NHO.

“We would hope to engage shortly but progress will be slow until the business plans are done.”

Once the business plans are in place, he expects progress to be swift because private development is not subject to the project management controls applied in the public sector. The lack of viable proposals for private development is likely to scupper the Tánaiste Mary Harney’s July promise to free up 1,000 beds for public patients over the next five years.

She said this when outlining the assessment framework for private investment on the grounds of public hospitals, drawn up by consultants Prospectus.

Announcing the plans, the Tánaiste said: “By now encouraging new private hospitals to take a substantial number of private and semi-private beds out of our public hospitals, we will create new beds for public patients in the fastest and most cost-effective way in the next five years.”

Speaking at a meeting of the Oireachtas Health Committee yesterday, Mr McLoughlin said they had to look at a number of criteria when considering proposals for private development on public hospital grounds including what could usefully be done with the freed-up beds in the public hospitals.

Labour health spokesperson Liz McManus questioned if extra private beds would create further inequity in the health service.

The head of the HSE, Professor Brendan Drumm, admitted to severe difficulties with data collection since the HSE was set up. He said there was a need for an IT system recording patient information.

Prof Drumm re-iterated his commitment to primary care as a means of taking the pressure off acute hospitals.

He confirmed payments to doctors to co-operate with the doctor-only visit card would not come from the €16 million set aside for primary care this year.