Fórsa has told members of the Oireachtas that the Sláintecare programme must create an integrated healthcare system that places the patient at its centre, discard traditional turf warfare over control of the system, and deliver a community-led intervention model that ensures patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

The union said such an approach could relieve the pressure on the acute system, which is bursting at the seams. The comments were made at a virtual Oireachtas briefing organised by the union’s Health and Welfare Division last week.

The union’s head of health, Éamonn Donnelly, told Oireachtas members that the Covid-19 pandemic demanded an acceleration of an integrated healthcare reform agenda: “Since the creation of the HSE in 2005, there have been various bit-part restructuring models. None of those models have created an integrated health care system. This time it absolutely must achieve that.

“Fórsa is well prepared for the new model as we’ve been at the centre of negotiations on developing integrated structures in both Community Health Networks and Childrens’ Disability Networks,” he said.

“Fórsa represents a breadth and depth of grades of workers across both the acute and community health sectors like no other union. Fórsa is therefore well placed to be a significant positive influence on the delivery of a real integrated healthcare model.

“The new model will see a massive increase in community-led health interventions requiring an additional 1,500 HSCPs (Health and Social Care Professionals) whose roles are crucial to service planning and delivery,” he said.

Éamonn criticised what he described as the “accepted narrative” that the health system needs more doctors and nurses and fewer administrators: “This narrative is only relevant to a healthcare system with an over-reliance on acute hospital care. 

“Measurement of our health system can’t continue to be based on waiting list times and hospital trolley numbers, as these are measurements of system failure, not outcomes.

“Our shared aim is to achieve the creation of a community-led, integrated healthcare system that places the patient at the centre, and ensures that patient has access to all of the specialists and providers of different care needs within the same community location,” he said.

Éamonn said administrative staff in health are unfairly targeted by some commentators with accusations that they are surplus to the requirements of an efficient healthcare system.

“Those who make such accusations do so without any understanding the range and complexity of roles carried out by administrative staff, which includes the scheduling of hospital appointments, managing waiting lists, providing first point of contact, payroll, follow-up on therapy interventions, ICT systems and services, home help service coordination, procurement, logistics, and more recently contact-tracing, which will be a continuing requirement even as a vaccine is rolled out,” he said.