A tenth of Sláintecare health reforms facing 'significant delays' 

The report shows 29% of last year’s goals for health reforms under Sláintecare are complete and 29% are on track.

Over one in 10 goals for health reforms under Sláintecare face “significant delays” including access to homecare and a number of hospital waiting list plans.

A progress report on last year shows that of the goals for moving away from hospitals, 13% face significant delays and 3% face delays for external reasons.

The report also shows 29% of last year’s goals are complete and 29% are on track.

“There were some key projects which continued to be challenged and impacted by covid-19 or other external factors,” the report by the Department of Health says.

Older people continue to face delays in accessing homecare, also known as home support, due to carer shortages.

The report acknowledges significant delay in delivering planned additional hours. It says the department expects “continuing issues due to carer capacity”.

It says while over 21m home support hours were delivered last year, the target was 23.6m hours.

Plans to reduce hospital waiting lists face significant delays in some places due to changes in how funding is being allocated.

The report says lists are still “far too long”.

Some improvements were seen with “a net reduction of c.30,000 people (4.1%)” from all waiting lists. However, this leaves an estimated 690,000 people still waiting, it accepts.

The department said without recent funding boosts “active waiting lists for acute scheduled care would have increased by 42% to over 1 million people”.

Plans for a new adult safeguarding policy covering abuses also face significant delays. The draft policy is being substantially revised following feedback.

Other plans marked as facing significant delays by the end of last year include publication of the first National Population Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research and Evaluation Strategy in December.

However, a working group looking at contact between schools and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services is already running.

A scheme to offer medical cards to terminally ill patients is running, but developing legislation to support this is marked as facing significant delays.

Sláintecare Action Plan

The Sláintecare Action Plan 2023, also published on Tuesday, focuses on waiting times and inequalities.

An implementation plan for the biggest move of setting up regional health areas to replace the HSE as it stands is “being reviewed and refined”.

Recruitment of CEOs for these six areas is set to begin after July.

Other plans include finalising procurement strategies for promised elective hospitals in Cork and Galway.

New surgical hubs in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway, and Dublin will be worked on in parallel with those hospital developments.

In relation to e-health and electronic health records, the report says “further investment” is needed to make this happen.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said: “In 2022 and 2023 central elements of Sláintecare have and are being achieved, including the new public-only consultant contract, a new community-based service enhanced community care, and certain eligibility measures.” 

He said investment over three years has seen an additional 17,298 staff recruited, including 2,400 staff for the new community services.