Health report author attacks lack of action

AN EXPERT appointed by the government has accused the Department of Health of failing to act on key recommendations contained in her health reform report, published three months ago in a blaze of publicity.

Professor Niamh Brennan, commissioned to carry out a value-for-money audit of the health services, said she was ‘very concerned’ at the delay in implementing the reforms proposed in the Brennan report.

“We put in [the report] an addendum dealing with every one of the 136 recommendations and setting out an explicit timeframe for the implementation of each one. Absolutely critical to their implementation was the appointment of a very strong, independent person to drive the process forward. That someone has not been appointed gives me cause for concern.

“I know absolutely nothing about the progress made. I rang the department the week before last and was told someone would ring me back,” Ms Brennan said.

Key among the recommendations was the establishment of a national health executive, run by a board and headed by a chairman, to run the health service as a unitary national service. The implementation of a substantial number of the recommendations is contingent on this executive, or at least an interim executive, while legislation is drawn up to put it on a statutory footing.

However the department confirmed to Irish Medical News this week it has not yet appointed an implementation steering group or a chairperson to the group, nor has it appointed an interim health service executive (HSE). The department said it hoped a CEO for the executive would be appointed in the autumn.

When the report was launched on June 18 last, Health Minister Micheál Martin said: “We are determined to move forward as quickly as possible with implementation. I, and my Department will certainly do everything we can to ensure this happens.”

Yesterday Labour spokesperson on health, Liz McManus, said it was a matter of grave concern that the author of such an important report was “now being blocked from getting information about its implementation and is so dissatisfied”.

Fine Gael Health spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell said Mr Martin had spent the summer “talking about fat tax and the smoking ban” rather than concentrating on health service reform.

However, the authors of the Prospectus Report on structural changes within the health service, launched in conjunction with the Brennan Report, said change could not be implemented overnight.

Vincent Barton, director of healthcare practice said: “The Government is starting out with a project the size and type of which is rare in the public sector. It is a huge logistical exercise and you don’t rush reform of this scale and get it wrong.”

He said he was aware of progress during the summer on “the more boring project management arrangements”, and it would be unfair to say nothing had been done.

A statement from the Department of Health said an interim board for the HSE would be appointed ‘in the coming weeks’, and a decision on membership of a national steering committee to oversee the implementation of reforms was ‘expected very shortly’.