The Health Service Executive (HSE) is to carry out a review of acute hospital services in counties Cork and Kerry.
The HSE has commissioned management consultants to produce a new plan within a three-month period.
The review is to focus primarily on the configuration of hospital services in the south. The management consultants have been asked to make specific recommendations on how services could be delivered on a regional basis.
According to a HSE report, the review will look at the optimal distribution of specialty services for the geographic region and the population of Cork and Kerry in order to provide "safe, sustainable, cost-effective and high- quality services".
The review will also advise on the optimal governance arrangements which should operate between and within each hospital site in Cork and Kerry.
The HSE, in a report on the review, said this should reflect "the ethos/ownership of the various entities, as well as best practice in relation to hospitals operating in networks".
At present, acute medical services in Cork and Kerry are provided by State-operated hospitals, voluntary institutions with their own boards, although largely funded by the Exchequer, and by the private sector.
The HSE operates the Cork University Hospital Group (comprising Cork University Hospital, St Mary's Orthopaedic Hospital, the Erinville and St Finbarr's hospitals), Mallow General Hospital and Bantry General Hospital. In Kerry the HSE runs Kerry General Hospital.
In Cork city two acute hospitals, the Mercy University Hospital and the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital, are independently owned voluntary hospitals.
The new review is the latest in a series of such measures undertaken by the HSE in various parts of the State.
Many of these reviews have proved to be highly controversial, particularly in the northeast where consultants recommended developing a new centralised hospital for the region.
A second review of services in east Galway and Roscommon is being carried out following widespread public opposition to proposed reform of surgical services in the region.
The HSE said the new review of acute services in the south would have to take cognisance of the role of each hospital in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching as well as in training and research.
"Proposed governance arrangements should include reference to appropriate links to University College Cork and other academic and third-level institutions.
"In addition, cognisance needs to be taken of the academic as well as clinical service roles played by other HSE services, other voluntary providers and private hospitals including any future hospital development co-located with an existing HSE hospital," the HSE report on the review stated.
The HSE said that management consultants would undertake a number of site visits and fact-finding interviews. It said there would be progress reports provided to appropriate stakeholders.
