Shaping a healthier future in the Republic of Ireland

The health services in Ireland are to be radically reoriented towards the principles enunciated by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1978) at Alma Ata. Plans have been laid out in a recently published document entitled Shaping a Healthier Future: A Strategy for Effective Health Care in the 1990s (Department of Health, 1994). The strategy is based on the values of equity, quality and accountability. It identifies the revised aims of the health services as being more clearly focused on improvements in health status and quality of life, especially for those in need of long-term support, and describes the reshaping of the organisational structures necessary to achieve this. National objectives to operationalise the strategy have been set within a 4-year action plan.