FG’s health policy has been ‘exposed’, says FF

PARTS of Fine Gael’s health policy have been “significantly exposed”, Fianna Fáil has said, following criticism of the Dutch model on which it is based by one of the world’s leading journals on health policy.

An analysis in the journal, Health Policy, found the “money follows the patient” model introduced in Holland in 2001 was “not effective and not efficient”.

But Fine Gael’s health spokesman Dr James Reilly has robustly defended his party’s policy.

Fine Gael believes that replacing the annual fixed budgets for hospitals with a pay-per-patient system will lead to savings of 10% per year of €80 million by 2014.

But independent analysis in the well-respected journal said the system led to a 7.8% or €1.1 billion increase in hospital spending in Holland.

It found the model led to an increase in the number of patients who were admitted to hospital without requiring treatment, because hospitals wanted to keep up demand in order to maintain funds.