HSE publishes 2025 National Service Plan

The Ministers for Health and Children, Equality, Disability Integration and Youth, Stephen Donnelly and Roderic O’Gorman together with Ministers of State Mary Butler, Colm Burke and Anne Rabbitte have today welcomed the publication of the HSE National Service Plan 2025. The plan sets out the delivery by the HSE of a range of health and social care services that will be provided to the people of Ireland within the allocated budget of €26.9bn, a €1.6bn increase on 2024. This includes a €297.8m investment in new service developments including enhancing mental health, older persons and disability services.

Welcoming the publication of the National Service Plan Minister Donnelly, said: “The National Service Plan reflects the significant investment provided by government in 2025, which is the highest funding ever for the HSE. I welcome the strong focus on productivity to ensure our health service delivers as much as possible for patients within budget. I would like to thank the HSE Board and the Executive for the considerable work undertaken in delivering the National Service Plan 2025.

“It will shortly be supported by a Capital Plan involving approximately €1.4 billion for infrastructure and equipment across the health service. €190m of the Capital Plan is specifically for digital and ICT infrastructure, which will deliver on the HSE priority of advancing the Digital for Care Programme.”

According to Minister O’Gorman: “I am extremely pleased to see this year’s record investment in disability services reflected in this ambitious programme of work for the HSE. It is important that services are made more flexible and person-centered and in line with the vision of the UNCRPD. Funding provided for specialist disability services will help support this ambition. Continuing to deliver on the reform underway in disability services is key to improving the lives of the people who use those services, and this remains an important objective.

“I also welcome the range of initiatives designed to address the known challenges within the sector and the work that the HSE will carry out, in partnership with stakeholders to strengthen recruitment and retention, make services more sustainable into the future and continue to drive change and reform across the disability sector.”

Minister of State for Disabilities, Anne Rabbitte, said: “The budget for Disability Services has surpassed €3 billion in 2025 for the first time, which is an increase from €1.8 billion in 2020. There will be continued work to improve and strengthen therapy services for children, as well as the continuation of the Special Schools Pilot Programme so that children will have access to therapists on-site during the school day. This has been a particular focus for me and while there remains a lot of work to do to ensure it’s working as intended for children and families, I’m glad it’s moving in the right direction. In addition, I’m happy to see a range of targeted services included in the NSP that will help deliver innovative services in a number of specific areas, as well as the continued investment in areas such as residential services, personal assistance hours and Day Services, which ensures the HSE can deliver on long-term aims of service expansion and improvement.”

Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Mary Butler, said: “2025 will see our biggest ever investment in mental health services and care for older people. I’m pleased to see a focus on dementia care, an increase in home support hours, and continuing community support for our older population.

“In mental health services this year, we will maintain improvements to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), enhance the national counselling service with supports for men, and continue to roll out the national clinical programmes for ADHD for adults and eating disorders.”

Minister for Public Health, Wellbeing and the National Drugs Strategy, Colm Burke, said: “As our population continues to grow and expand, the protection and promotion of health and wellbeing is more important than ever. Supporting people to follow healthier behaviours reduces many preventable chronic diseases and eases the burden that they place on health services.

“The Sláintecare Healthy Communities Programme plays a vital role in this regard, reducing health inequalities and improving health outcomes through education, increased awareness and supporting access to services. I’m very pleased that its expansion is a priority for 2025, with a particular emphasis on meeting the needs of underserved groups. As our network of Healthy Communities grows, it will help us to achieve the Sláintecare aim of providing the right care in the right place at the right time.”

The focus of the plan includes:

• Healthy Communities: improving health and wellbeing, including through screening and protection from health threats
• Receiving the Right Care: delivery of integrated high-quality care, implementing models of care and clinical strategies
• Receiving care in the right place: providing care close to where people live and expanding alternative care pathways
• Receiving care at the right time: improving access to care, reducing wait times
• Strong foundations: expanding workforce, delivering ICT services, including the Digital for Care transformation programme. A significant programme of work that will provide patient summary data to healthcare professionals supports the administration and delivery of services/care within and across community healthcare settings and important solutions such as the single national immunisation system and the hospital medicines management system.

All of these 5 parts have specific components for both Health and Disability services. Collectively they are the framework for the HSE to deliver services and measure performance throughout 2025.

Speaking about the HSE’s priorities for 2025, Ciarán Devane, HSE Chairman, said: “The Board’s overarching objectives for 2025 are to support improved efficiency and increased productivity, maintaining the ongoing focus on improving the quality of care, and continuing the shift to providing more care closer to people’s homes.

“The publication of this Plan coincides with the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the HSE. During this time Irish health and social care services have been significantly reshaped to improved health outcomes for the people of Ireland.

“While we have seen significant progress over the last 3 years, a priority for the HSE in 2025 will be to further reduce waiting times. We will place a specific focus on maximising an integrated approach to care delivery across community and acute settings, enabled through our new health regions.”

Bernard Gloster, CEO of the HSE, said: “At a time of unprecedented demand for services we must ensure that our funding delivers more care and services to the people of Ireland, reduces waiting times and improves health outcomes of the population. Our priority in 2025, therefore, must be a relentless focus on productivity and changed ways of working. Expanding our workforce, improving our buildings, adding new capacity and seeing more people than ever must all be pursued at the same time.

“The digital opportunities for the health service is one of those changes and a major priority as we face new challenges and ensure we can provide the health service the country needs and deserves. I am delighted that the business case for this national Electronic Health Record is progressing and hope it will conclude to next stage approval in 2025, however in the meantime there are critical steps along the way to this end such as achieving a summary care record, HSE patient App and use of technology to develop virtual care. Digital for Care 2030 requires us to now deliver on significant steps over each of the next few year.”

6 new Health Regions, as envisaged in Sláintecare have been established. Health and social care services will be planned and delivered around the specific needs of local populations leading to better co-ordination of care and access to services. This offers the opportunity to take the next step in creating a modern, value-based health and social care system. Finalising the change from the traditional operational centre of the HSE to a visible regional operating system overseen from the Centre is a key target by 1 March, 2025. This will mark the completion of the most significant structural reform of the HSE and how it operates since the organisation first came into being.