No progress on 10% of proposals in health plan

Health strategy: Work has yet to commence on more than ten per cent of the commitments set out in the Government health strategy that was published in 2001.Progress to depend on 'budgetary situation'

The strategy document set out 121 "actions" on the health services which the Government committed to implementing over a seven to ten year period.

However, an internal report drawn up in the Department of Health earlier in the summer reveals work on 13 of these proposals has yet to get underway.

Among the commitments in the strategy on which no progress has yet been made is the provision of four additional free GP visits under the Maternity and Infant Care scheme, as well as the introduction of grant aid of two weeks' annual respite cover for dependent older people.

The internal report says the timing of the commencement of these actions is "to be decided by the Government in the context of prevailing budgetary situation".

The report also acknowledges that the plans to review the consultants' contract and the commitment to streamline the regulation of the number and type of consultant posts has been "stalled" as a result of a lack of co-operation by senior doctors in a row over their insurance cover.

The report also states that commitments to review maternity care, paediatric services and legislation governing medicines, as well as the plans to establish strategic partnerships between private hospital providers through a forum established under the National Hospitals Office (NHO), has not happened.

However, it points out that the NHO has now been established under the Health Service Executive (HSE).

The strategy also called for a review of how the Department of Health allocates funding to agencies and hospitals, and for the publication of an annual statement on the funding process.

The report says that responsibility for health funding has now been devolved to the HSE. The strategy also set out that protocols for the management of chronic diseases should be developed by the proposed new Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA).

The department report says that HIQA has now been established on an interim basis pending primary legislation.

The strategy also contained a commitment to develop co-operation between the Government's advisory groups on cancer and cardiovascular health and the NHO and HIQA.

The report states that both the NHO and interim HIQA are now in place while the draft cancer strategy, to be published later this year, will propose areas for working jointly with HIQA.

The report also maintains that work has commenced on 88 per cent of the actions set out in the strategy. These included the provision of 780 additional beds/places with 120 more to come on stream this year.

The report states that new psychiatric units have already or are set to open in Portlaoise and Blanchardstown and new policy frameworks on suicide prevention and mental health were in preparation.

It says that a €900 million investment in disability services has been announced for 2006-2009 and that the key target of securing a 15 per cent decrease in mortality from cancer in under-65s had been achieved three years early.

It suggests that breast cancer screening had already commenced in parts of the south east and will start in Kilkenny early next year.