System of Health Accounts Liaison Group

Background

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is required to report health expenditure data in accordance with the classifications and standards of the System of Health Accounts (SHA) to OECD/WHO/EU SHA under Regulation (EU) 2015/359. The SHA is an international standard facilitating analysis of health expenditure (public and private) cross-classified by type of care, providers of care, and sources of funding.

The System of Health Accounts Liaison Group provides a forum to support and provide guidance on the production of the SHA. It provides a means for discussion between the HSE, Department of Health, the CSO and other experts appointed by the SHALG. The Chair of the SHALG will be the Assistant Director General in the CSO. 

Terms of Reference

Function of the Group

The function of the SHALG is to oversee and support the production of the System of Health Accounts (SHA) for Ireland. It is envisaged that the HALG will meet as required but not less than once a year. The SHALG provides a formal quality assurance mechanism in relation to Ireland’s SHA statistics. 

Responsibilities of SHALG

In order to meet this objective the SHALG will:

• Meet once a year and more if required
• Advise on strategies for accessing and using existing data systems appropriately in order to provide statistical data
• Advise on developments required for health information systems
• Contribute their expertise and experience relating to the healthcare system in Ireland
• Facilitate access to appropriate personnel and data sources in their respective agencies as appropriate
• Contribute to quality assurance of project outputs
• Raise awareness of and promote use of SHA concepts in healthcare information systems having regard to the general information requirements of the HSE and
• Communicate the importance and relevance of the SHA to the Irish healthcare sector within their own organisations and across the health care sector in general
• Will discuss developments arising from EU Commission / OECD and WHO

Composition of SHALG

The SHALG shall be the formal, high-level mechanism for consultation and communication between the CSO, HSE, DOH, and experts appointed by the HALG. The Chairperson of the System of Health Accounts Liaison Group (HALG) will be the Assistant Director General in the CSO. 

The Liaison Group shall appoint, as required, ad hoc working groups to investigate issues arising; such working groups shall report to the SHALG. Administrative support will be supplied to the group by the CSO.

Current Expert Sub Groups of SHALG

• Health Accounts Technical Group
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Terms of Reference for Health Accounts Technical Group (HATG)

Objective of Health Accounts Technical Group (HATG)

The Function of the HATG is to maintain sustainable data compilation, processing, and reporting systems on health care expenditure in line with System of Health Accounts (SHA) classifications for reference year N and annually thereafter and to identify improvements and advise on their implementation.

Responsibilities of HATG

In order to meet this objective the HATG will:

• Will meet as required but not less than 2 times a year
• Ensure access, where available, to required data sources with the support of the members of the Health Accounts Liaison Group (HALG)
• Ensure adherence to statistical reporting and data protection requirements in the data collection and compilation process
• Be aware of and review potential new data sources
• Improve the data quality
• Work to increase the granularity of the data
• Ensure that any changes to the Irish health care system are reflected in the reported data
• Review and respond to requests for clarification or metadata arising from user queries, including the verification processes of the international organisations collecting SHA data
• Be aware of recommendations arising from the work of the Health Accounts Technical Sub Groups (HATSG)

Health Accounts Technical Sub Groups

Function of HATSG

A Health Account Technical Sub Group (HATSG) will be set up if a specific area of the health accounts needs further review.  Each of the main service delivery areas of the HSE will be represented by an individual Sub Group. The objective of each Sub Group is to review expenditure data submitted by the HSE for SHA purposes to ensure that the data is a valid representation of that service delivery area’s expenditure for a given time period.

Responsibilities of each Sub Group

In order to meet this objective each Sub Group will:

• Meet  as necessary to deal with relevant SHA matters specific to that service delivery area as they arise
• Advise on the representativeness of data submitted by HSE to CSO for SHA purposes for that service delivery area
• Make recommendations to the Health Accounts Technical Group on methodological issues arising which are relevant to SHA data for that service delivery area