The Minister for Health and Children, Mary Harney TD, welcomed the publication by the HSE of the First Biannual Report against the HSE Corporate Plan 2008 - 2011.

The Report, based on January to June data, provides an overview of trends and progress against the six high level corporate objectives and priorities as set out in the HSE Corporate Plan. Agreed metrics are used to chart organisational progress against these medium and longer term objectives which are then implemented annually through the HSE National Service Plan.

Commenting on the Report, the Minister said "This Report represents a significant milestone in terms of mapping performance trends in the health sector to inform future strategic and annual service planning.

"This level of reporting and public accountability is new in our health services. It provides another instance of the benefit of having brought the Health Boards together into one national organisation."

The Minister continued "It is evident that good progress has been achieved in some key areas, including childhood vaccination and MRSA infection rates. However, there are also areas where improvement in performance is required and which would benefit from some focused attention, such as caesarean section rates, breastfeeding rates, disability assessment rates and emergency department waiting times for people admitted. My Department is engaging with the HSE in terms of the specific actions required to address the performance issues arising."

The Minister concluded "I welcome the ongoing work in relation to the development and refinement of performance measures and I look forward to receiving the next report against the HSE Corporate Plan, based on July to December data. This report, together with the ongoing improvements in the HSE National Service Plan and the development by the HSE of the HealthStat system of performance measurement, is a key part of our ongoing co-ordinated approach to measuring health service performance at national level."

The Department of Health & Children is working on a collaborative basis with the HSE to further develop and refine performance measures across all service areas, to ensure that they are as robust and meaningful as possible and reflect key priorities and international best practice as well as being comparable both within the EU and further afield. Both organisations are also working to streamline and simplify collation and presentation of performance information which will provide more capacity for better use and analysis of data.

Source
Department of Health and Children, Ireland