Ireland has a rapidly growing and aging population — the number of people aged over 65 has risen by 22% since 2016, and this demographic shift will accelerate over the coming years.

Minister Donnelly said, “To meet the ever-increasing demand for health services we are changing and must continue to change how we deliver those services . . . We need to look more deeply at how we are structuring our healthcare services to ensure that resources are used effectively, and the productivity of the health service maximised.”

The Productivity and Savings Taskforce will focus on the following:

• The use of new technology to provide hospitals with access to leading-edge data management and visualisation tools to improve health outputs;
• New ways of working — streamlining operational processes, to drive productivity across the health sector;
• Procurement; and
• The future cost of health care, which will consider amongst other things, the impact of demographics and emerging technologies on the health care services of the future.

The Department of Health said the Taskforce will compliment ongoing projects in areas such as, the reduction in the health services’ medicines budget, the reduction in both agency and management consultancy costs and the accelerated roll-out of the HSE’s Integrated Financial Management System.