Pre-Budget Submission 2017 - Press Release
Realistic health budget allocation needed to address years of acute hospital and mental health underfunding according to the IHCA
Association launches Pre-Budget Submission 2017
Thursday 21st July 2016: The recently elected President of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), Dr Tom Ryan has expressed concern that frontline acute hospital and mental health budgets have consistently been set at completely unrealistic levels in recent years and resulted in a system that is failing the patients who depend on these services.
Launching the IHCA’s 2017 pre-budget submission today, Dr Ryan said that since 2008, Ireland’s health budget has consistently failed to cater for patients’ needs. “The unrelenting focus on futile attempts to balance inadequate budgets has resulted in years of failure to invest in essential increases in acute hospital capacity, new technology and equipment. As a result, Ireland’s acute health infrastructure is now crumbling, with many hospitals attempting to treat patients with inadequate capacity and equipment that is increasingly obsolete. The Government must address these gaping capacity and equipment problems by ensuring that it substantially increases funding for capital expenditure to reverse the cuts of recent years.
Furthermore the Government must significantly increase funding that targets the frontline in acute hospitals to provide the resources needed to care for the growing number of patients presenting in acute hospital and mental health services. After years of austerity, the Government must now address these overwhelming constraints which are severely restricting and jeopardising the delivery of timely high quality safe care to patients.”
The IHCA, which represents 85% of hospital consultants, strongly recommends that the 2017 acute hospital budget fully addresses the capacity constraints that are preventing the timely provision of care to patients. In particular, it recommends that the acute hospitals budget must include provision for:
- An immediate increase in the number of acute, ICU and rehabilitation beds required to treat patients within an acceptable time frame, to relieve emergency department overcrowding, to reduce bed occupancy levels to internationally accepted norms and address the growing waiting lists.
- An immediate increase in the availability of step down care and other facilities to support timely discharge of patients from acute hospitals.
The delivery of mental health services has been severely restricted by budget and staffing cuts of 21% and 10% respectively, when compared with 2008. The IHCA stresses it is essential that the 2017 mental health budget is significantly increased to enable the provision of improved care and ensure that children and adolescents receive the care they need in age appropriate units.
In its 2017 submission, the Association also highlighted the continuing consultant recruitment and retention crisis which will have lasting effects if not addressed without delay. Dr Ryan said: “In reality Ireland is no longer internationally competitive in attracting highly trained specialists in the numbers needed to treat a growing numbers of patients and to develop the public health system. There is a continuing failure to fill consultant posts due to the State’s blatant and repeated breaches of contract terms and due to the discrimination against new consultants. Combined with frontline under-resourcing, these fundamental breaches of trust continue to undermine the attractiveness of the Irish health service to highly trained internationally mobile specialists.”
The submission outlines the urgent need to address the escalating cost of clinical indemnity, which is now forcing consultants to restrict and cease their practices. In that respect, the IHCA strongly recommends that proposals to lower the indemnity caps and the provision of indemnity on a commercial basis through the State Claims Agency, for consultants practising in private hospitals, should be brought to Cabinet as a matter of priority. It has also highlighted the pressing need to urgently adopt Regulations and Rules of Court to give effect to the newly enacted Pre-Action Protocols. These changes to Rules of Court must include a requirement for the exchange of information within defined periods, with significant penalties where exceeded, to reduce delays and costs in resolving claims.
ENDS
For further information or to arrange an interview with the IHCA, please contact:
James Dunny, FleishmanHillard - +353 86 3883903 or James.Dunny@fleishmaneurope.com
Fiona Murphy, FleishmanHillard - +353 87 8194464 or fiona.murphy@fleishmaneurope.com
About the IHCA
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association was established to promote, encourage and support the advancement of the practice of Medicine, in all specialties and areas, and the improvement of the Health Services in Ireland. There are over 2,400 members of the Association and it is widely recognised as the leading representative voice for the profession in Ireland.