HSE to spend €38m on new health initiatives

The Government is to allocate nearly €40 million for new health initiatives next year, including cancer services and facilities for school leavers with disabilities.

Details of the new funding were set out in the official letter of financial allocations for the HSE. In it, the Department of Health said that of the HSE's total allocation of almost €13 billion, a sum of €38.5 million was to be used for a number of specific new service enhancements which the Government wanted to see prioritised.

This includes €10 million to be spent on implementing a new national cancer strategy, as well as on Newnew posts at Cork University Hospital and St Luke's in Dublin, and on the costs of facilitating patients from the Republic receiving treatment in Derry.

Disability

A further €7.25 million is to be allocated for funding day-centre places for about 1,500 young adults with disabilities who will leave schools and training centres in 2016.

About €3.5million is to be earmarked to fund the opening of a new endoscopy unit in Roscommon, an acute floor including oncology services at St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny, a maternity unit in Wexford, a stroke unit at St James's Hospital in Dublin, a new emergency unit in Limerick and a hospice in Kerry.

About €3 million is to be allocated to implement the new national maternity strategy; a further €3 million is to be earmarked for other hospital developments including recruitment for paediatric scoliosis services and stroke telemedicine consultants. Funding will also be provided for the living donor programme at Beaumont Hospital and for bilateral cochlear implants.

About €2 million is to go towards developing the national ambulance service. The HSE has also been instructed by the Department of Health not to earmark any less than €940 million next year for the Fair Deal nursing home scheme while the allocation for the State Claims Agency should be no less than €160 million.

The HSE has also been told that its budget for the primary care reimbursement service, which covers the medical card scheme among others, should no lower than €2.395 billion.