No quick-fix solutions to reform, says Tanaiste

The Tánaiste has promised to bring forward a package of reforms to improve the experience of all patients using the health service.

Ms Harney told the Dáil last night that "there will be no grandstanding on my part.

"I won't build up any false expectation. I won't play politics with seriously ill people, but I will work as hard as I possibly can with the resources available to me, to bring forward rational, sensible and sustainable solutions." The Minister for Health also announced that the director of the new Health Service Executive, will take up his job two months early.

Legislation for the executive, which takes over the administrative responsibilities of the health boards, will go through the Dáil and Seanad before Christmas, Ms Harney added.

The chief executive was due to start at the beginning of April, but will now begin at the end of January. He would be there from the beginning to ensure "the new system of administration, the new system of accountability and responsibility" would "work more efficiently and more effectively for all the patients of this country".

Ms Harney acknowledged that the difficulties experienced in Accident and Emergency facilities "are not acceptable to me, to the Government or to the average person in this country who cannot understand how at a time when we've treble spending in health care", that long delays were being experienced by so many patients.

This was happening "notwithstanding the enormous efforts of the dedicated and caring staff to look after these patients".

Following a debate earlier yesterday when the Taoiseach was pressed about the A&E situation, Ms Harney said that the package of reforms would include measures to deal with step-down facilities.

Labour's health spokeswoman, Ms Liz McManus who raised the issue again last night, said it was not good enough for the Government to "run away from" the problem of patients on trolleys in A&E.

Ms Harney said that "the problems of A&E are not unique. They are problems of the health services as a whole. So when we look for solutions, we must look for ones that are sensible and sustainable and fit in to the overall strategy of reform."

She added: "There are no quick-fix solutions. There are no magic wands that can be waved. If it were easy, it would have been done an awful long time ago."