Two new appointees have been made to the Board of the HSE. The board is currently meeting informally in advance of the Health Service Executive (Governance) Bill 2018 being enacted and commenced later this month.

Under the new law, the board will be the governing body of the HSE and will be accountable to the Minister for Health for the performance of its functions.

Accountable

The CEO of the HSE will be accountable to the board.

Brendan Lenihan (former President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland) has been appointed for his expertise in financial planning and management. He is also a national Trustee of Pieta House.

The second appointee, Fergus O’Kelly, is a Trinity College clinical professor in general practice and family medicine, and formerly practised as a GP in Rialto in Dublin.

He founded the first out-of-hours’ GP co-op service in Ireland and established a number of nurse-led chronic disease clinics. 

The new HSE board will focus on implementing an effective performance management and accountability system in the HSE.

Public trust

It will also develop a plan for building public trust and confidence in the HSE and the wider health service.

The new appointees join chair Ciarán Devane along with UCC professor of law Deirdre Madden. Professor Madden is also chair of the Commission on Patient Safety and Quality Assurance, and becomes deputy chair of the HSE Board.

The other board members are:

• Fergus Finlay, former chief executive of Barnardos,
• Tim Hynes, group chief information officer, AIB,
• Patient advocate Dr Sarah McLoughlin,
• Mark Molloy, quantity surveyor, who is a member of the expert group on tort reform and management of clinical negligence claims,
• Aogán Ó Fearghail, former GAA president,
• Fiona Ross, hair of CIE and Mental Health Ireland, and
• Dr Yvonne Traynor, vice-president of regulatory and scientific affairs with Kerry Group.