Public health doctors have raised concern over the lack of publication and implementation of the report of the public health reform expert advisory group (PHREAG).
The Department of Health confirmed to the Medical Independent (MI) that the report was submitted to the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly in September 2022.
“The Minister is considering the contents and plans to bring the report to Government, with a view to publishing it thereafter,” the spokesperson said.
The PHREAG commenced its work in January 2022. According to the Department, the group was tasked with identifying “learnings from the public health components of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic in Ireland and internationally” with a view towards “strengthening public health including health protection generally and future public health threats and pandemic preparedness specifically… as well as the delivery model for public health”.
The Irish Society of Specialists in Public Health Medicine (ISSPHM) informed MI it was “concerned” over the lack of movement on the report.
“This group [PHREAG] of national and international public health experts was tasked with providing recommendations on how to strengthen Ireland’s capacity to respond to public health emergencies like Covid-19,” Dr Douglas Hamilton, Chair of the ISSPHM, told MI.
“The findings of their report, which have been with the Minister for the past six months, need to be published urgently and addressed in full in order to ensure we don’t pay the same human and economic costs of responding to the next public health event.”
Dr Hamilton added that “in many ways the acute phase of the Covid pandemic has passed and a degree of complacency regarding future emergencies seems to have set in”.
“However, as we enter what has been coined the ‘new age of pandemics’, complacency is something we cannot afford.”
The Department’s spokesperson confirmed there would be a separate “full inquiry” into how the pandemic was handled in Ireland.
“The purpose is to help us to identify what worked well and what could be improved on should we face another pandemic in the future. It will include what happened in nursing homes, in hospitals, and in the community, along with the wider economic and social response.”
The spokesperson said it was expected the inquiry would be “up and running” this year.
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