Statement by Progressive Democrats Candidate in Kildare North, Councillor Kate Walsh
The Progressive Democrats is committed to accountable public services and effective public services.
The budget for health was £2.5 billion when this Government came to office. It is now over ¤8 billion. This is an increase of 150 per cent. Our party in government is committed to funding health services and we have proven that commitment.
The need for reform is also clear to all of us who want to achieve excellent healthcare for all Ireland. It’s also clear to the 80,000 people working in health. The system is big, it’s complex and there are many different perspectives within it on the best way forward.
We take a more straightforward approach, focusing on results.
The Progressive Democrats proposed a complete Value for Money audit of the Health services. This was completed last summer and formed the backbone analysis of the subsequent Government Health Strategy.
Second, as the Government was preparing the work in the 10- year health strategy, we as a Party decided to focus our attention on one critical area where we might be able to establish a ground-breaking new way of dealing with an urgent problem. We focused on ending the waiting lists for hospital treatment.
The Government adopted our policy, thanks to the political backing of an Tánaiste Mary Harney, and set up a Treatment Purchase Fund of ¤30 million. A National Treatment Purchase Team is now being established to manage this dedicated funding.
The Government Health Strategy now includes a target by the end of 2004 to deliver treatments to patients within three months. This will effectively mean the end of waiting lists, as one only goes on a waiting list three months after the outpatient appointment. While some may not regard this target as ambitious enough, I think that it is the right target, the only one which is fair and equitable for public patients. I think it is fair to say that it reflects the emphasis we placed on ending the waiting lists.
The insight behind our idea was simple: public patients currently wait for long times for elective treatments such as hip replacements, cataract operations, ear, nose and throat operations and vascular surgery. If they had the money, or insurance, they could buy the treatment quickly from private medical practice. Our plan is for the State to do precisely this for them: to buy the treatment, from wherever it can be got. This is a simple and effective way of serving the public.
Some people said there was no capacity in Ireland do it. But private hospitals confirmed they could carry out 11,000 procedures. And they were only waiting for government to give them the signal to develop more capacity.
Some people said we would export our problem to Britain and Europe: but they failed to recognise the willingness of Irish medicine to respond, and they failed to recognise the European trend towards cross-border European health service provision.
Some people said we would pay consultants twice for the same work. But the Irish Patients Association, and patients themselves, recognised that from a patient’s perspective, just one treatment will be paid for, treatment that waiting patients desperately want.
Some people said we were not addressing the structural issues about a two-tier system: but refused to accept the simple fact that our plan will deliver results, while they offered instead no solutions except an old-fashioned failed model of a one-system-fits all national health service.
We must make our health services work. We must use new solutions. The Government has to fund health services with tax, and we have to make sure to generate those resources. But the State does not have to be the sole provider of publicly-funded health services, by any means.
Across public services, an international trend is to separate the purchaser and provider of services, so that we can manage and monitor results.
We have to be focused how we do this, and avoid unthought out, excessive change. But this approach is a step forward for accountability, efficiency and for tapping into the initiative and enterprise of private healthcare providers.
-March 5th 2002.