In today’s Joint Committee on Health, the PA Consulting Group, consultants to the HSE, responded to questions on Health Service Capacity. I queried the Cost Benefit Analysis Models used. Recent decisions regarding bed closures and withdrawal of medicines has undermined confidence among the public in these models which underpin major HSE decisions.
Many decisions made by the HSE regarding bed closures and drug allocation have a huge impact on people’s lives. It is imperative that the process through which the HSE arrives at these decisions is transparent and logical. People need to see what considerations were taken into account in terms of short, medium and long term consequences.
Regarding the withdrawal of Versatis pain patches it is very hard to see how a proper cost benefit analysis would have pointed towards denying so many people access to this medication. Already we are seeing the consequences of this decision in the short-term and
The closure of district hospital beds, especially in Rural Ireland, has already led to increased pressure on major hospitals such as Galway University Hospital. Add to this the pressure on patients to make long journeys and the decision to close local beds does not seem to have been thought through in the long term.
Therefore, I asked the HSE that decisions that have such widespread and long-term impacts be open to scrutiny and transparency.
