Report of the Independent Review Group established to examine private activity in public hospitals

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PDF

Item Type:

report

Date:

2019-02

Author:

Ireland. Department of Health

Access:

openAccess

Citation:

Ireland. Department of Health, 'Report of the Independent Review Group established to examine private activity in public hospitals', [report], Department of Health, 2019-02

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URI:

http://hdl.handle.net/2262/93753

Description:

public acute hospitals, leading to an expansion of the public system’s ability to provide public care. The Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare acknowledged that removing private care from public hospitals would be complex and it proposed an independent impact analysis of the proposal to identify any adverse and unintended consequences that may arise for the public system. Our task is to analyse this proposal to identify the implications. As part of our work, the Review Group undertook a consultation process, which involved publicly inviting submissions from interested parties, meeting a number of stakeholders and visits to two hospital sites. We conducted a detailed analysis, examining the scale and nature of activity in our hospital system and matters relating to the people who deliver our health services. This included an analysis by the ESRI of the nature, level and role of private practice in public hospitals. Additionally, work was done by the Department of Health’s actuarial consultants in relation to the impacts on private health insurance. We also investigated the international experience, including inviting the WHO-hosted European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies to present an evidence briefing and requesting the OECD to conduct a desktop exercise looking at how dual public and private practice is organised and regulated in a number of OECD countries and the opportunities and challenges these countries are facing. The Review Group believes that the long term removal of private activity from public hospitals can be achieved over a transition period. This could commence through immediate action on the consultant contract in parallel with capacity enhancements and increased funding for the expected increase in public activity. This report presents our findings.

Author: Ireland. Department of Health

Corporate name:

Ireland. Department of Health

Publisher:

Department of Health

Type of material:

report

URI:

http://hdl.handle.net/2262/93753

Collections

• Department of Health General Collection

Availability:

Full text available

Subject:

Health, Private activity, Public hospitals

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