Service must improve ‘to stop taxpayer drift to private healthcare’

THE drift towards private healthcare will increase if taxpayers do not get the kind of service they are demanding, the head of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Prof Brendan Drumm, warned yesterday.

“If we cannot face the challenge of justifying the money that has already been spent in the system then clearly we are going to be challenged by others coming from the private sector who will inform the taxpayer and Government that they will provide those services at a more economic rate,” he said.

Speaking at a national conference of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) in the Mullingar Park Hotel, Mullingar, Co Offaly, Prof Drumm said that while he would be arguing for more investment in public health, he wanted the money to be spent in specific areas, particularly at community level.

But, he warned, it would be extremely difficult to put extra resources into the public health service until the taxpayer saw how the money already spent had been used.

He had a “very definite interest” in the HSE providing value for money because he believed a lot of work would ultimately be taken from the public service in a competitive environment.

Prof Drumm also warned a lot of money was being thrown at dysfunctional services for political reasons and it could not go on. And, he said, the HSE is in a position to take control of the situation because it had taken over the budget.

He said the HSE must take the brave decision to spend the money on the basis of need and quality of service and resist political lobbies who want it spent on local services.

“I believe we now have the structures in place to do that but it is a significant responsibility and needs to be acted on,” he said.

Whether he would succeed in turning the public health service around would depend on how the various players were prepared to change in the way they thought about their own specific areas of interest.

“It is critical that people begin to think on a broader level about the provision of a high quality service and that is going to demand very significant changes in how we all work within the system.”

Prof Drumm also believed the focus on the acute sector had been to the detriment of community services, particularly the need for 24-hour GP services.