The Head of the Health Service Executive has said that 2024 will be an exceptionally challenging year.
Bernard Gloster told the Oireachtas Committee on Health that given the deficit for this year is around €1.5 billion and the Government this week has provided for a supplementary estimate of just under €1bn, the remaining €500 million will be a first charge on next year.
Mr Gloster said that over the coming period, trolley waits and pressures will be a feature of the health services and the focus will be to ensure that these are kept to the minimum extent possible.
Bernard Gloster said that the number of patients in beds whose acute care has ended has reduced to around 474 a month.
He said he wanted to see these Delayed Transfers of Care down to around 400 a month by the end of the year and to 300 a month next year.
Mr Gloster also said that the number of patients aged 75 years and older waiting in emergency departments longer than nine hours has decreased.
He said that attendances at emergency departments are on a par with last year but greater numbers of patients have been admitted.
The increase in staff numbers next year of over 2,200 will be much lower than in recent years, Mr Gloster added.
Speaking about the health budget, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said that financial pressures that arose during the Covid-19 pandemic has made budgeting even more difficult, but added that there has been significant increases in health funding over last number of years.
He told RTÉ's News at One: "We have more work to do, which we are going to do in the time ahead to make budgets as accurate and as effective in getting value for the taxpayer and funding our public services".
He said there was a budget of nearly €22.5 billion, and that the last few years have shown a recurring issues of additional money being needed for health during the year of varying amounts.
