Innovation: The Health Service Executive (HSE) has set aside around €21 million to reward hospitals and community services for innovation.
A total of €15 million is to be provided in one fund by the HSE for innovation in relation to integrating services between hospitals and the community.
A further €6 million has also been set aside to fund projects aimed at advancing innovation and reform in the area of accident and emergency throughput in hospitals.
The Health Service Executive said that submissions to the €15 million Innovation Fund should focus on integrating services between a hospital/institution and the community, the provision of innovative home supports and specialist foster and adoption arrangements.
The development of primary and community care and the improvement of home and community support services is one of the priorities of the Health Service Executive's strategic, planning and reform programme for the year.
This will involve the provision of primary care teams in the community as well as the development of new community intervention teams, further out-of-hours GP services and access for family doctors to a range of diagnostic services.
Separately, the Health Service Executive has also told hospitals that funding from the new €6 million A&E Innovation Fund will be provided for projects that advance reform. A spokesman for the HSE said that the group wanted to prioritise improvement in timely and appropriate access to key services by reducing waiting times in A&E departments.
He said that the Health Service Executive also wanted to see improvements in conditions for patients while they were waiting in accident and emergency departments as well as reductions in unnecessary A&E attendances and admissions.
The HSE said that it also wanted to ensure timely and appropriate discharge for those ready to leave hospital.
The establishment of the funds by the HSE marks a further departure from the traditional method of providing financial allocations to hospitals and healthcare agencies.
Already this year the HSE has introduced "a carrot and stick" approach to financial management by withholding around 2 per cent of allocations from hospitals for the first six months of the year.
This money may be provided by the Health Service Executive to hospitals in the second half of the year if they meet agreed targets in the areas of A&E, hygiene and performance in dealing with MRSA.
