Dara Gantly takes a look at the latest iteration of our structural reform programme.

The Taoiseach has insisted it is the Government’s intention “to deliver on Universal Health Insurance (UHI), by putting in place the building blocks”.

Primary legislation will be required in due course to give full effect to the introduction of hospital Trusts, which will be discussed in the next session, the Taoiseach has signalled.

The HSE and its funded agencies have been once again directed to correct erroneously implemented payments, this time relating to allowances for hospital consultants.

The West/North West Hospitals Group has a new name, Saolta University Health Care Group, which was unveiled last week at the Group’s second annual conference.

The new Community Healthcare Organisations (CHOs) and the hospital Groups will be required to work together to ensure the full implementation of new national standardised models of care, it has emerged.

A detailed three-year implementation plan has been drawn up by Saolta University Health Care Group and the HSE’s Health and Wellbeing Division.

The Expert Panel on extending medical cards chaired by Prof Frank Keane, has recommended that “financial hardship or means testing should remain the main discriminator for selecting the large majority of those eligible for a medical card”.

“It is not good enough to simply issue guidelines,” the IMO has warned in light of the severity of the current Ebola virus epidemic, which has been likened to the initial HIV/Aids outbreak

Ireland’s premier surgical training body is looking to philanthropy on an international scale to play a more significant and sustained role in the life and work of the College and has committed to significant investment in the creation of a development function, IMT reports.