State to ask private sector for health service aid, says Harney

THE State will increasingly look to the private sector to provide crucial health services for public patients, Tánaiste Mary Harney said at the weekend.

She has also promised to end the situation where public patients spend hours, or days, on trolleys waiting for treatment and said hospitals should be paid on a results-basis in the future.

“People are entitled to expect better”, the Health Minister told delegates at the annual conference of the Progressive Democrats in Cork on Saturday.

Ms Harney wants investors to put their money in much-needed hospital facilities rather than in residential or commercial property. The State would then lease facilities or purchase services from these investors, she said.

The private sector could, for instance, provide new hospital beds which the State would buy to alleviate trolley queues.

“The State doesn’t have to own all the buildings, or even the equipment,” she said. “In the modern world, many of these are leased or purchased from the private sector. We don’t need to put taxpayers’ money always into bricks, mortar and machinery if others are there to do it.

“What the State must do is ensure high standards, and use its resources to buy services for the public (in the facilities that the private sector provides),” she said.

Ms Harney commissioned management consultancy firm Prospectus to prepare a framework for how this type of private-public system might work. She has now received that document, and will forward it to the Health Service Executive (HSE) shortly.

Ms Harney pointed to radiotherapy as an area where the existing procurement system was clearly not working. “I have a new radiotherapy result on my desk, and the plan is it will take 10 years to have a national radiotherapy network,” she told delegates.

“Ten years is far too long. If we’re going to have it quicker, we’re going to have to change the way we plan, finance and implement policies in this important area,” she said.

The Government would be spending e12 billion on the health service this year, and it was now reform that was necessary rather than more resources, she said.

She had a 10-point plan for accident and emergency services which is being implemented.

“If that plan doesn’t work, there will be other actions, and other decisions,” she said. Hospitals, she added, “have to be remunerated on the basis of results.”

Meanwhile, the new chief executive of the HSE is expected to be announced this week.

The interview process concluded at the weekend, and HSE chairman Liam Downey will be recommending the chosen candidate to the board today.

Ms Harney, who has to sign off on the appointment, said she would accept the board’s decision.