The Minister for Health and Children, Mr al Martin, had signalled his determination to tackle urgent issues surrounding bed capacity and the operation of accident and emergency units in Irish hospitals.
In an address to the IHCA, he also described the aims of his new health strategy. In giving a personal commitment to a new "vision for health", he went some way towards meeting earlier calls for a strengthened planning role in his Department when he signalled the new strategy would give priority to the development needs of the health service.
"It is not appropriate or acceptable that we would just continue doing more of the same. Monitoring the status quo is not an option. We need to look critically and constructively at service issues such as the length of the working week, how to provide care over this longer period, the redrawing of professional boundaries, organising care and service delivery around the patient rather than vice versa," he said.
While acknowledging a tripling of capital investment in health over the period of the National Development Plan, Mr Martin said he was conscious "there remain key areas of urgent need that require investment on an urgent basis. Areas such as services for older people, services for people with a disability, the young chronic sick, childcare services and last but not least, issues around bed capacity and manpower in the acute hospital services."
In a possible indication of Budget strategy, Mr Martin underlined his intention to deal with "the urgent issues surrounding bed capacity". He also promised to address the problems in accident and emergency departments in the short term.
Mr Martin gave a commitment to convene the final meeting of the Medical Manpower Forum within the "next number of weeks". He acknowledged that the forum had taken too long to reach its conclusion.
He also responded to concerns about enterprise liability and private practice. He gave a commitment to introducing measures to ensure medical indemnity cover will continue to be available to consultants in full-time private practice and those employed under Category II contracts.