SF Health Policy Released Today

Sinn Fein today launched their healthcare policy document ‘Healthcare is a Right’ here.

With study gobbling up my time I can really only reprint the executive summary for your own perusal. Hopefully one of the contributors will take up the task of looking through the detail. If not then I will endeavour to return to it later. Health is surely a major battle ground next year and if Sinn Fein are to expand on the core republican vote in the south it is with solid policies they must do so. It goes without saying that for some voters there is nothing SF can do to win their vote but to the consituency who are sympathetic and open to persuasion this is essential.

Interim Policy Proposals – 26 Counties

• Invest all health funding in the public system, immediately end tax breaks for private hospitals and the land gift scheme, phase out public subsidisation of and ultimately replace the private system within an agreed timetable.

• Medical cards for all under-18s (as a transitional measure towards a fully-universal public access service).

• Rollout of the promised Primary Care Centres throughout the state on an accelerated timetable.

• A timetabled and fully resourced strategy to deliver the additional 3,000 hospital beds required.

• Halting the over-centralisation of hospital facilities and reversal of cutbacks in services at local hospitals.

• A plan for enhanced provision of essential public nursing home beds, community care facilities and home care.

• Ensuring working conditions, promotion prospects and remuneration sufficient to maintain trained staff in the health services, halting the exodus from the public system and from the country.

• All new hospital consultant posts to be public-only.

Community Health Partnerships for Accountable, Effective Delivery

Sinn Féin proposes the establishment of Community Health Partnerships (CHPs) that will be accountable for the delivery of all healthcare within their geographically defined areas.

Community Health Partnerships will be managed by a unique cooperative of local public representatives, service users, advocates, health professionals and systems experts. Reflecting at local level the governance structures of the All-Ireland Strategic Health Executive, they will be democratically accountable to the local communities they serve and act as a standing mechanism for community participation in healthcare decision-making.

Community Health Partnerships will be responsible for the strategic planning and oversight of all community-based services and local hospital services. For the first time, local health needs will be at the centre of planning and delivering local health services.

Equality in Hospital Care

• Introduce a comprehensive hospital care system that is free at the point of use.

• Configure hospital services on an all-Ireland basis.

• Institute a national plan for the provision and resourcing of hospital care, including clear access targets.

• Configure all hospitals to ensure that emergency services are available as locally as possible. For the vast majority of the population, these services should be located less than 45 minutes travel time away. No one should be more than one hour’s travel time from an A&E Unit, when the three critical access factors are taken into account: hospital location, road conditions and ambulance provision.

• Transfer the management of local hospital services to the Community Health Partnerships.

• Extend Rural Community Rapid Responder schemes nationwide.

• Invest significantly in the ambulance service, including upgrading of the existing fleet and introducing an air ambulance fleet.

Sinn Féin Policy Proposals on Mental Health

• Legislation to introduce statutory rights to equality and self-determination for people with mental ill-health, to ensure empowerment of people with mental health needs, and guarantee a right to participation in decisions affecting them and to advocacy if necessary.

• Legislation to introduce a statutory right to timely access to appropriate mental health services.

• Reconfigure primary, secondary and children’s/adolescent mental health care services to manage a shift away from secondary services over the next 5-10 years, such that the vast majority of mental health care is provided by Primary Mental Health Care Teams (providing a 24 hour service).

• Establish a network of step-down services and other comprehensive community supports for those making a transition out of secondary care facilities.

• Establish a network of fully-resourced Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services throughout Ireland, coterminous with the Primary Mental Health Care Teams.