Health service ‘in transformation, not in crisis’

THE health service is not in crisis, it is in transformation, chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Professor Brendan Drumm insisted yesterday.

“We cannot continue with a system that fails to respond to what people require from a modern health system,” he stressed. But he agreed the HSE could make more of an effort at highlighting the positive changes that had occurred.

“We need to do a better job at getting the message out,” he said at the launch of the HSE’s annual report. He also admitted that, while significant strides were being made towards transforming the health service, some of the criticism directed at the HSE was warranted. He said when an error affected an individual patient it was absolutely right that the HSE should be heavily criticised.