IRISH HEALTH SERVICE EXECUTIVE

Irish Health Service Executive

Irish Health Service Executive

Introduction

In latest years the Irish Health system has seldom been out of the media limelight, with the Ministry of Health viewed as a poisoned chalice to all who take up the post. The Department of Health and Children is advised a bottomless pit, which takes a significant allowance of the levy take without showing any apparent enhancement in the service delivered. Rocked by scandals such as the Lourdes investigation (Harding Clark, 2006), Hepatitis C (Lindsay, 2002) and the Leas Cross Inquiry (Hennessy and Donnellan, 2006), to mention a few, the public opinion of the health service is of a scheme in imminent hazard of collapse. Patient deaths display that the service is dysfunctional and the persons that are most in need are suffering needlessly. Restructuring of the service has currently begun with the reorganisation of the consignment of care by the Health Service Executive along with many other suggested changes. It is thus timely to consider the aim on enhanced safety and value of care being supplied to the Irish community.

Concern about the value of healthcare is not a new notion for patients, professionals or the government, although these concerns have become manifest in latest times due to the changes in healthcare and society. Increases in the complexity of the diagnosis and remedy of patients, as well as alterations in patients' expectations, in combination with government anxieties considering spiralling healthcare charges have combined to put healthcare foremost in the public mind. According to Øvretveit (2000) quality does not just include the excellence of the merchandise being consigned, but includes the economics of the consignment of that product. Quality is characterised as exceeding the customer's anticipations, and has 3 major constituents; patient value, expert value and management value (Øvretveit, 2000). The adversity has been in the reconciling of these three apparently disparate points of view into a healthcare scheme, which consigns the best treatment, at the correct time, for the correct cost. This is a consideration paper which raises more inquiries than responses and is timely with the aim on value in healthcare, especially now as Ireland prepares for a general election for a new government with healthcare a main concern issue..

Management of health services

Following primary white paper on the Health service in 1966 in Ireland, there have been a significant number of Health articles including Health: The broader Dimensions; A Consultative Statement on Health policy (Department of Health (DoH), 1986), pursued by Shaping a Healthier Future: A scheme for productive Healthcare in the 1990s (DoH, 1994) and value and Fairness: A Health scheme for you (DoHc, 2001). These government accounts created a blueprint for the perfect healthcare scheme, although implementation has been needing, if due to lack of funding or political will. Tussing and Wren, (2006,p. 331) propose that it is a system in crisis and is often “chaotic”. The 1994 scheme was considered to be “very innovative for the period” with more than 200 suggested goals in 17 distinct areas ...