Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly Publishes the Sláintecare Progress Report 2021-2023
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has published the Sláintecare Implementation Strategy & Action Plan 2021 – 2023 Final Progress Report.
This report highlights the unprecedented progress being made in transforming our health and social care services to provide the Right Care, in the Right Place, at the Right Time.
Aligning with the Programme for Government commitment, record levels of investment has enabled the delivery of new care pathways, new facilities, new technologies and new ways of working that will enable health and social care professionals to respond to the growing health needs of our population. There has been an expansion of primary care capacity and community services to ensure that patients are treated in their locality or as close to their homes as possible.
Minister Donnelly stated:
“Significant progress has been achieved to ensure our health and social care services are treating more patients than ever before. The significant public investment, including in our community and primary services means that more people are being treated at home and in the community.
“We now have 96 Community Health Networks in place to support integrated care across primary, acute, and community care. For example, the Bray Integrated Care Hub is delivering a range of chronic disease and older persons specialist services in the community. GPs in the area can refer patients directly for pulmonary testing in the community, reducing waiting lists for respiratory consultants in hospitals and allowing patients to be tested faster and closer to home. A total of 904,857 GP directly referred community diagnostics were carried out over the last 3 years.
“We have Community Intervention Teams (CITs) across the country, which are providing enhanced services in the community in support of the overall primary care system, providing access to nursing and home care support. The CITs provide a range of services including the administration of home IV antibiotics, acute anticoagulation care, acute wound care and dressings, enhanced nurse monitoring following fractures and falls. The CITs are preventing unnecessary hospital admission or attendance, and facilitating early discharge of patients for whom CIT care is appropriate.
“We have been making positive progress in relation to our waiting list performance in recent years. The 2024 Waiting List Action Plan which we published in March 2024 will continue the positive progress. Facilities like the Ambulatory Gynaecology clinic in Sligo University Hospital are making a real difference to the women of Sligo and the Northwest.This clinic has already had a positive impact on the outpatient waiting list figures for Sligo University Hospital. Sligo is one of sixteen “see and treat” gynaecology clinics operational across the maternity network.
“More people are eligible for free access to our health and social care services than ever before which is moving us closer to universal health and social care. Eligibility for a GP visit card has been extended to over half a million people in 2023, including free GP care to people earning no more than the median household income. We are focused on building an equitable and world class health and social care service, where people access service on the basis of need, rather than ability to pay, and our talented health and social care workers are supported to provide the best service possible to the people of Ireland.”
Minister Donnelly noted that:
“We have much more to do but I am very pleased to present this 3-year progress report setting out the detailed programmes that have been delivered or progressed and the tangible and significant improvements that are delivering better health services to patients and the public, on our road to delivering Universal Healthcare for all.”
Improving Access
Expanding Eligibility & Affordability
. *A state-funded IVF scheme launched in 2023.
Increasing Capacity
Reform
Quality & Safety
Background
The 2017 Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare in Ireland set out the policy direction for the reform of our health services. The Sláintecare vision is for a universal health and social care system where everyone has equitable access to services based on need and not the ability to pay - the Right Care, in the Right Place, at the Right Time, with the Right Team. Sláintecare is the most significant reform programme of Ireland’s health and social care sector in the history of the State.
The foundation for this reform was progressed based on the Sláintecare Implementation Strategy 2018, which set out key reforms to be implemented, based on the Oireachtas report over a three-year period. The Programme for Government (PfG) provided significant funding to support and direct the second phase of implementation as set out in the Sláintecare Implementation Strategy & Action Plan 2021–2023. €1.235 billion was allocated by government in 2021 to support Sláintecare reforms. This report sets out the progress made with these government supported reforms over the period 2021–2023.
Building on the first three years of progress and the learnings and response to COVID–19, the Sláintecare Implementation Strategy & Action Plan 2021–2023 called out two high level priority areas, namely:
1. Improving Safe, Timely Access to Care, and Promoting Health & Wellbeing; and
2. Addressing Health Inequalities—towards Universal Healthcare.
These priority programmes had eleven associated projects to deliver on tangible outcomes for patients over the three-year period. The reforms in this plan were delivered against the challenges of COVID–19 and the cyber-attack in May 2021. The record level of investment provided by government for reforms in the 2021 and subsequent budgets supported key initiatives associated with the two priority programmes including innovation, the delivery of integrated services, investment in people, new care pathways, new technologies, new facilities, and new ways of working aligned with the PfG priorities.