HSE has ‘no expectation’ of receiving extra €2bn in Budget

The Health Service Executive has "no expectation" of receiving the extra €2 billion it says is needed to restore services to pre-austerity levels, according to its director general, Tony O'Brien.

He had never expected or demanded this amount in pre-Budget communication with the Government but was making no apologies for articulating what funding the health service needed, he told a conference in Dublin today.

In a letter to the Department of Health last month, Mr O'Brien sought "significant additional investment to begin to repair the impact of six or seven years of austerity and to move towards acceptable levels of service".

The size of the additional funding sought, at almost €2 billion, was criticised by ministers as excessive given the sums available to Government. Health is expected to get an additional €200 million in next month’s Budget.

The needs of the people of Ireland for improved access to health services were very real, Mr O’Brien told a conference organised by the Healthcare Enterprise Alliance.

“I make no apology for articulating these needs when asked, even though the resulting ask in cash terms is more than the Government has at its disposal currently. If the health service and those who lead it do not articulate what the health of the population needs, then who will?”

“Let me be clear, we do not as it has been suggested, dream in Technicolor. But we do aspire to provide the services people need, to the standard they reasonably can expect, when they need them most.”

He said he accepted the job of heading up the health service in 2013 for the sole reason of bringing about fundamental reform in the way it functions. Since 2010, €1.5 billion in savings and cost avoidance has been made through a series of agreements on the price of medicines and this has allowed the HSE to provide new and often expensive medicines during a time of economic difficulty.

Demand for health services had outstripped the ability to keep up, he said, and without concerted efforts, this would make healthcare unaffordable.

The Alliance, which brings together some of the larger manufacturers of generic drugs in the State, claims changes to the way drugs are procured could result in further savings of €129 million.

It wants a switch from high-cost biologic medicines to equivalent but cheaper biosimilar drugs, the opening up of the low-value medicines market to competition and the treatment of all new patients with a generic medicine from the outset.