Getting onto the decision agenda
The recommendations were finalised by the EAG in September 2007. This was followed by a series of meet- ings between members of the EAG and “the [CEO’s] kit- chen cabinet”. During the approval process, the costing framework and gap analysis requested by senior manage- ment “frightened off” interest and generated a “fear of crea- ting need”, according to interviewees. Enthusiasm and commitment had waned at higher levels of the HSE, and the EAG had become “a headache”. Senior HSE managers insisted that recommendations should be cost neutral and new projects would need to come from existing resources. One participant reflected on the inevitability “that this is going to cost money and more importantly it is going to cost new posts because the fact of life is that diabetes is very poorly served in Ireland.” Endorsement of the EAG proposals came in September 2008 at a meeting with se- nior management and the CEO; this was perceived as the final hurdle to implementation. However, there was a con- tinuing sense of uncertainty within the group: “was that an endorsement or was that not an endorsement; was that policy or not policy? It wasn’t clear...” The lack of clarity extended to which person or persons made decisions in the health system in contrast to clinical decision-making:
“You will never get the name of the person who is making the decision, never! And if they do, they’ll have made a decision and changed to another department... [It] is very odd to our brains as clinicians because every single day, all day every day, we’re making finite life-changing decisions.”