Minister for Health visits Tullamore Primary Care Centre
The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly visited the HSE Primary Care Centre in Tullamore on Friday where he was briefed on progress in rolling out of Enhanced Community Care (ECC) in the Midlands region.
The ECC programme is about enhancing and increasing community health services and reducing pressure on hospital services.
In Tullamore Primary Care Centre, Minister Donnelly met with the staff of the centre and primary care network services. He was welcomed by the Network Manager Laura Magarahan and County Manager Ann Sheerin and introduced to the HSE team in the Primary Care Centre, including staff from administration, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, nursing, community intervention team and community re-ablement service, psychology staff and social work.
The leads for the Laois Offaly Integrated Care for Older Persons (ICPOP) hub and Chronic Disease management (CDM) hub Dr Mary Doolan and Elmary Purtill also presented on the day to Minister Donnelly.
Speaking during the visit, Minister Donnelly said: “The national Enhanced Community Care programme is at its core a reform programme, representing an investment of €240 million to develop and enhance care in the community. It has been developed under the Sláintecare Programme to ensure all HSE primary and community care services work together effectively.”
Developed as part of implementing Sláintecare, the ECC programme aims to ensure all HSE primary and community care services work in an integrated way to meet population health needs across Ireland, to reduce dependence on hospital services and provide access to consultant-led specialist services in the community.”
ECC is a huge investment in community healthcare services in the HSE, aiming to provide more services closer to people’s homes, and provide extra services for older people, or people who live with long-term health conditions.
The Minister added: “The work that has been undertaken by the Integrated Care Programmes for Older People and Chronic Disease over recent years has shown that we can achieve much better outcomes, particularly for older people who are frail, and people living with chronic disease. The new model of care allows specialist multidisciplinary teams at community healthcare network level to support people in their diagnosis and ongoing care. With the support of the Dept of Health, these models are now being implemented at scale by the HSE, and when fully implemented will see a total of 30 Community Specialist Teams for Older People and 30 Specialist Teams for Chronic Disease.”
Head of Primary Care, Midlands Louth Community Healthcare, Joseph Ruane, said: “Tullamore Primary Care Centre and the development of specialist teams as part of ECC will allow us to provide high quality care to people as close as possible to home. It will provide improved access to specialist services in the community. I want to thank the staff who are working to get this model of care up and running in our Community Healthcare Organisation, and who are already making a difference to the lives of thousands of older people in the Midlands, Louth and Meath.”
Acting Chief Officer Midlands Louth Meath CHO, Carole Broadbank, said: “Developed as part of implementing Sláintecare, the ECC programme aims to ensure all HSE primary and community care services work in an integrated way to meet population health needs across Ireland. By doing this, we can reduce dependence on hospital services and provide access to consultant-led specialist services in the community."
The ECC programme is already making progress, aiming to reduce pressure on services and dependence on the hospital-centric model of care through enhanced and increased community services.