THE GOVERNMENT has introduced a plan to streamline and refocus health research as a way to improve patient treatments, but also feed into the “smart economy”.
The ambitious strategy maps out plans to help bring new discoveries out of the laboratories and into patient care as quickly as possible. It also seeks to build stronger links between researchers and industry where discoveries can be exploited commercially.
Minister for Health Mary Harney launched the Action Plan for Health Research 2009-13 yesterday in Dublin. She acknowledged that the substantial redirection of Ireland’s existing €200 million health research effort would have to proceed without the benefit of additional exchequer support.
She also launched a matching document, the Health Research Board’s Strategic Business Plan 2010-2014. This maps out how the board will play its part in delivering the goals set out in the plan.
The health sector consumed 27 per cent of all spending in the State and more than 50 per cent of all the tax raised, she said, yet next year there would be an additional €4 billion of Government spending cuts. “Clearly this will impact severely on the health services, it has to.”
Even so, the action plan and the HRB’s strategy document could be delivered using existing funding, she said. “The reality is we want to improve the experience and outcomes of patients and be cost effective in the way we deliver health.”
Both documents place a strong emphasis on the central role played by research in delivering the goals they contained. Research in the laboratory would feed back into improved patient care, but then also offer commercial opportunities if researchers link up with industry, according to HRB chief executive, Enda Connolly.
“This will improve people’s health, change how we deliver patient care, ensure evidence is applied in policy and medical practice and create opportunities for new enterprise to support our economy,” he said.
Health research accounted for almost €200 million of the €580 million in State funding spent on research during 2008.
The plan itself came out of a commitment in last December’s policy document Building Ireland’s Smart Economy to streamline medical research across all departments by creating a Health Research Group. This body, chaired by Jim Breslin, an assistant secretary in Ms Harney’s department, produced the action plan.
Mr Connolly described the HRB report and action plan as “two parts of the same plan”. The strategy sets directions and goals so that the country could “reap the benefits from our investment in health research”.
One key decision in the document is to shift HRB spending away from basic research in favour of the translation of discoveries into patient treatments.
“Now is the time for us to [ask] are we doing it right and that is one of the decisions that has to be undertaken: to look at . . . priorities as to where we put our investment. That means we have to make choices,” Mr Connolly said.
“We have a certain amount of money and we are going to focus it in these directions.
“We are making those choices and we will be adjusting our funding programmes and the way we spend in these areas to reflect that.”
The action plan is available at dohc.ie/publications; and the HRB’s strategy document is available at hrb.ie/publications.