Board questions HIQA’s capacity to conduct future statutory reviews

HIQA’s capacity to conduct future statutory reviews and the impact on scheduled work should be raised with the Department of Health, according to the Authority’s board.

The matter arose at a board meeting in May during discussions on HIQA’s review into urgent and emergency care in the mid-west.

HIQA CEO Ms Angela Fitzgerald told the board there had been recent correspondence from the Economic and Social Research Institute regarding a delay in the provision of key data on regional projections of future demand and capacity needs. The meeting also heard that the impact of additional planned private care in the mid-west region was “still uncertain”.

The board noted that the review had been carried out in line with the agreed assurance processes. However, there was a “need to carefully consider” HIQA’s future role, capacity and internal capability to undertake reviews of this nature, given the impact on planned work for health technology assessment and other areas.

The meeting heard there should be engagement with the Department on these issues.

A HIQA spokesperson said its business plan was agreed with the Department on an annual basis in line with its corporate plan.

“Throughout the planning process, HIQA makes provisions for unplanned events such as statutory reviews to enable us to respond appropriately.”

In relation to the mid-west review, the spokesperson said that “given the importance of this work and specialist nature of the required inputs, the redeployment of specialist staff within HIQA was necessitated”.

The revised timeline for completion of the review is September. The report was originally expected to be published in May.