Health service reforms do work, insists Harney

CONVINCING the public that health service reforms are working is her hardest battle, Health Minister Mary Harney conceded yesterday.

Recent independent research showed the level of satisfaction among health service patients was high but the public perception, she said, was different. A similar situation exists in other countries, she said.

Ms Harney said theprogramme of ongoing reform, within the health system was about changing the way it worked.

“It is not necessarily about working harder, but about working smarter,” she told the Pat Kenny radio show yesterday.

And in the case of consultants, she said, it was all about working in teams so there was always a member available for patients.

Ms Harney said she was anxious to end the situation where a person with private health insurance was able to jump the queue.

Asked if she feared people would stop paying private health insurance as a result of having equality of access, Ms Harney said she did not know how it would pan out in 10 or 15 years time.

What she was sure of, however, was that when taxpayers put up €15 billion as they did this year, to support a public healthsystem, access to that system had to be equal.

The minister also pointed out that a review of the staffing situation in the health service was underway. Any redundancies, however, would have to be made on a voluntary basis.

“Clearly, if you amalgamate not just 11 health boards but a lot of other organisations as well, there has to be capacity for efficiency,” she said.

She pointed out that the Health Service Executive (HSE) was reviewing the administrative /management situation, not just within the organisation but within the wider health system.

She said the service had to be flexible with people moving from one service to another to meet the needs of patients.

Meanwhile, talks aimed at finalising a contract for hospital consultants are to take place over the next month.

The two consultant representative bodies, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (and the Irish Medical Organisation are to have direct negotiations between the HSE and Department of Health.)

Independent talks chairman Mark Connaughton SC, who provided both sides with a framework for a final agreement, will not be involved in the next round of talks.

It has been agreed the talks will take place for two days during the next two weeks. Both sides will adjourn for a week before meeting again.

The consultants’ body assistant secretary general Donal Duffy said both sides would have a number of tricky issues to deal with.

Earlier this week, Ms Harney said the process of appointing additional hospital consultants would start shortly.

The Government wants to appoint more than 1,500 additional hospital consultants and Ms Harney said she was anxious to move the process on as soon as possible.