People should be provided with health care close to their homes, the chief executive officer of the Health Service Executive (HSE) said yesterday.
"The number one issue is getting people away from this mentality that they have to drive 20 miles to the hospital to get their dressings changed, to get physiotherapy," Prof Brendan Drumm said.
He called for the provision of locally-integrated care. Hospitals were providing specialist services, but the rest was provided in the community, he said.
He was speaking in Dublin Castle at the HSE's announcement of the annual Health Services Innovation Awards, which are designed to recognise successful innovations and highlight the outstanding achievements of staff in the health sector.
Prof Drumm said that 90 per cent of surgery could be carried out on a day-care basis. Pumping money into acute hospitals would prevent innovation and take the services back to the 1950s.
The HSE wanted people to jump up and down and say this was their health service and it worked, Prof Drumm said. Getting the management of chronic illness right was very important. "We've got to move to manage chronic illness in the community, especially with the increasing percentage of people over 65 years."
On the A&E issue, Prof Drumm said: "Constantly we're challenged with people waiting on trolleys, but when you actually go and find out the figures you find that 5,000 people a week are actually admitted to hospital through our A&E departments."
He said that 90 per cent of patients did not have to wait at all once a decision had been made to admit them. About 10 per cent had a wait and the vast majority waited less than six hours.