Healthcare reform is a core priority for Sinn Féin. Our multi-annual plan would deal with overcrowding, reduce waiting lists, improve patient safety, and deliver free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare.

Our plan spans all care sectors, supports best practice, challenges the worst inefficiencies and inequities, and recognises that investment is needed to deliver reform.

Our plan addresses capacity, processes, and workforce planning. We would bring healthcare into the 21st century with a major investment in digital transformation. We have previously published comprehensive proposals in our documents Priorities for Change in Health and Social Care (2023) and Alternative Budget for Health 2024 (2023). In the coming weeks, we will be publishing our full 5-year health plan.

Sinn Féin would take big, bold steps towards universal healthcare over a 5-year term.

We would provide full medical card cover to all workers up to the median income by upgrading 150,000 GP visit cards a year to full medical cards. In 2025, we would also cap monthly medicine costs at €50 for all other households, phase out car parking charges, and reduce prescription charges.

Sinn Féin would set a zero-tolerance approach to hospital trolleys and overcrowding as a target for all hospitals. To achieve this, we would invest in 5,000 hospital inpatient beds out to 2031, including replacements for 1,000 unsuitable beds. This is in addition to a current pipeline of c. 1,000 beds and the c. 1,200 beds funded since 2020. We would also invest in diagnostic capacity, theatre space, and aligned discharge capacity in the community. We would accelerate the delivery of public only elective hospitals to tackle waiting lists. We would legislate to apply safe staffing levels and waiting list targets.

Within our hospital investment plan, Sinn Féin would prioritise investment in children’s healthcare. The agonising waits faced by children with scoliosis and spina bifida are unacceptable, and these children are not alone. Thousands more are languishing on waiting lists with untreated complex conditions. Sinn Féin would end the calamity of mismanagement of paediatric orthopaedics, mandate transparent care pathways for all children, ensure funded training for more specialist surgeons, and expand protected surgical and recovery capacity. Every child should have the opportunity for early intervention and wrap-around supports to manage their health. We would ensure that, where domestic services cannot treat a child on time, children who can travel have access to treatment abroad.

Sinn Féin would drive on essential home and community care reforms to relieve pressure on acute hospitals. We would invest in primary care, develop a landmark public GP contract, employ public dental teams, establish a Pharmacy First model for common conditions, and deliver a transformation in home care and home support. We would deliver 2,000 community beds over a term of Government.

Sinn Féin’s Mental Health Action Plan would deliver an integrated early intervention service for children and young people, expand access to Jigsaw and primary care mental health services, fund the full complement of inpatient and intellectual disability CAMHS teams, and deliver 20 more early intervention in psychosis teams. We would also invest towards achieving universal counselling in primary care.

Sinn Féin would implement multi-annual funding frameworks to deliver national strategies, such as for cancer, stroke, eating disorders, and women’s health, to name a few, which have been starved of adequate investment. Sinn Féin would set aside €90 million in recurring funding across a range of strategies in 2025, in addition to €17 million for our community addiction and recovery plan and €15 million to ensure a continued supply of new medicines and therapies. We would establish a structured care programme in women’s health to deliver a high-quality, life course approach to women and girls’ health and wellbeing. This would include access to therapies and medication, including contraception and HRT.

Sinn Féin would underpin delivery with strategic workforce planning to ensure a sustainable supply of frontline workers. We would double the number of third-level training places for health and social care over a term of government. We would maximise opportunities for domestic students and graduates to reduce reliance on international recruitment.