Donnelly claims 'considerable progress' on Sláintecare since the start of the year

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said 'the number of patients on active waiting lists to its lowest point in five years.' Picture: Moya Nolan

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has said “considerable progress” has been made towards the achievement of Sláintecare in the first five months of 2022.

Ahead of the publication of the Sláintecare Action Plan for 2022, Mr Donnelly said progress had been seen in terms of waiting lists, the national elective ambulatory strategy, and regional health areas so far this year.

Sláintecare, the cross-party strategy for the overhaul of the health system and the establishment of a single-tier service, has been in its implementation phase since late 2018.

The plan was rocked nine months ago by the resignations of a number of senior figures from its implementation board, who said the intransigence of the health service was making meaningful reform impossible.

Among the new areas of focus in the newly-published plan are “addressing of waiting lists”, “further developments in shifting care to the community”, and the introduction of the Sláintecare consultant contract, the Department of Health said.

The “progress” made in addressing the number of people on waiting lists — which earlier this week rose to at least 1.3m people — appears to be derived from the publication last February of the Waiting List Action Plan.

That plan aims to see “almost all” of the 75,000 people on active hospital waiting lists at the end of last year treated by the end of 2022, thus bringing “the number of patients on active waiting lists to its lowest point in five years” according to Mr Donnelly.

He said further progress had been seen in April via Cabinet approval for a bill which would provide for the abolition of hospital charges for children under the age of 16, something the minister said “is another important step towards delivering affordable universal healthcare”.

While a framework for the introduction of six regional health areas (RHAs) — a key pillar of Sláintecare  — was introduced earlier this year, the Government has been criticised by the opposition who claim the principle of RHAs has been “gutted”, in the words of Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane, with the new divisions set to have no real decision-making power.

Mr Donnelly says a specific Sláintecare progress report for 2022 will be published later in the summer.