Health Minister Sylvia Jones says about 275,000 people have been attached to primary care so far in the first year of the government's plan. More than half of that progress is due to moving people off the Health Care Connect wait list.
It concludes that there will be one additional death for every 69 patients who experience more than a four-hour wait in ED after the decision to admit has been made. This is consistent with previous studies. It's appalling in and of itself. Crucially, the study also demonstrated that for every four hours a person waited for a bed, their length of stay, once they got into that bed, increased by 8.6 hours.
The chair of the Oireachtas Health Committee has described a €10m increase in the cost of a national medical laboratory IT system as "an omnishambles". The health service signed a €33m contract for the system known as MedLis with Oracle Health in 2015 and agreed a €17.9m contract extension for it in 2022.
Increases in the cost of delivering healthcare continue to be a challenge for health insurers and these rising costs are outpacing general inflation. Consequently, the price of medical care, medicines and treatments is increasing at a higher rate than everyday household expenses.
Nearly 7,000 Irish medical professionals are now registered to work in Australia, sparking concerns about the impact on the Irish health service as the number seeking a better working life down under has risen by 86pc in six years.