Press Release: Tuesday 8 April 2025
Minister for Health publishes independent report on National Review of Adult Specialist Cardiac Services in Ireland
Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD has today (Tuesday 8 April 2025) published the National Review of Adult Specialist Cardiac Services in Ireland. The Review, chaired by Professor Philip Nolan, and supported by an expert and patient representative Steering Group, undertook an evidence-based comprehensive national review of scheduled and unscheduled hospital-based services for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac disease in adults.
The purpose of the Review was to examine how to optimise access to quality cardiac services and care, with a strong focus on improving cardiovascular mortality through cardiovascular disease prevention in the coming ten to fifteen years. The Recommendations in the Report set out the best way to achieve integration of cardiac services across primary, acute and social community care.
Minister Carroll MacNeill said:
“I would like to acknowledge the Steering Group and all stakeholders who have so constructively engaged with the process about how we can best support specialist adult cardiac services in Ireland.
“My commitment and the government’s commitment to reform is unwavering. We want to ensure every patient receives the right quality care, in the right place, at the right time. Today, the National Review of Cardiac Services sets out the way for this to be achieved for those with cardiovascular disease and help optimise prevention on a population basis. This will enable comprehensive cardiac care pathways that patients can easily access, and service providers can easily deliver”.
The Steering Group prioritised pressing challenges facing cardiac services in terms of access to acute and chronic heart diseases management and their prevention. With the publication of this Report today, the focus will now switch to the action and implementation of the Review’s recommendations.
In line with the evidence-based approach of the Review, and noting data from the recent Irish Heart Attack Audits, the Minister for Health will ask the Health Service Executive (HSE) to continue the provision of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute heart attacks at University Hospital Limerick (currently 24/7), and to expand the service at University Hospital Waterford to a 24/7 service (currently 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., 7 days a week), in order to meet the needs of their respective regional populations.
In the Review report, the Steering Group recommend as a first step, the restructuring and strengthening of our National Heart Programme. The Minister has written to the HSE to begin developing an implementation plan by June 2025.