Health watchdog: Overhaul healthcare system which is 'disjointed and reactionary'
In its submission to the Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) said the health system needed to provide for better decisions, safer services and improved care for patients.
In the submission, Hiqa said: “In the conduct of our work, we witness at first hand the pressures and challenges facing the Irish health and social care system. These range from familiar demographic and fiscal stresses, to workforce and infrastructural issues.
“From Hiqa’s point of view, the disjointed and reactionary approach to health service reform is leading to increasing instability in the system. There is a failure to assess current requirements and plan for the future health and social care needs of the population. There is also a reticence to recalibrate the current focus on acute hospital services to an integrated health and social care model.”
It said a strong commissioning model for utilising services, featuring evidence-based decision-making through mechanisms like a Health Technology Assessment (HTA) model, would bolster Ireland’s eHealth Strategy and boost accountability.
“We believe that now is the time to introduce safeguarding legislation to protect at-risk adults from abuse and neglect,” it said, adding existing national safeguarding protocols did not go far enough and statutory regulation should be extended to cover all domiciliary care services.
It also said integrated health and social care services across primary, community and secondary healthcare structures were necessary, in particular to allow an ageing population to be cared for in, or as close as possible to, their homes.
It also said new approaches to funding for the disability and older person’s sectors, such as individualised or personalised budgets, should be examined.
- www.hiqa.ie
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