This page provides information and resources to support staff during the transition to the new health regions.
Roles and responsibilities in health regions and HSE Centre
Each health region has its own leadership team. Each is responsible for local decision-making and providing both hospital and community care for the people in that area.
Regional Executive Officers
REOs are accountable and responsible for the operational service delivery in their respective regions. They report directly to the CEO.
The REOs are:
- Sara Long, REO, HSE Dublin and North East
- Kate Killeen White, REO, HSE Dublin and Midlands
- Martina Queally, REO, HSE Dublin and South East
- Sandra Broderick, REO, HSE Mid West
- Dr Andy Phillips, REO, HSE South West
- Tony Canavan, REO, HSE West and North West
Regional Executive Management Team (EMT)
The regional directors in the EMT in each health region report to the REOs.
The majority of the EMT posts are now filled in the 6 regions.
Access the current regional EMT leadership details
View the advanced design of the HSE EMT model (PDF, 909 KB, 3 pages)
HSE Centre and Senior Leadership Team
The purpose of the HSE Centre is to support health regions to deliver health and social care services for patients and service users. The centre will fulfil the functions of Planning, Enablement, Performance and Assurance.
The HSE Senior Leadership Team includes the 6 Regional Executive Officers (REOs) and national directors for the following areas:
- National services and schemes
- Access and integration
- Clinical
- People
- Finance
- Technology and transformation
- Communications and public affairs
- Strategic health infrastructure and capital delivery
- Internal audit
- Planning and performance
- Public involvement, culture and risk management
View the HSE Senior Leadership team
HSE Centre structure (PDF, 193 KB, 1 page)
CEO memo about HSE Centre changes issued on 9 February 2024 (PDF, 170 KB, 7 pages)
Integrated care
The new health region structures support and strengthen integrated care. This includes integration between:
- primary care and community services, including GPs, pharmacies and voluntary organisations
- acute hospitals and community services
- the HSE and wider public service organisations, such as local authorities
While structural change alone will not deliver integrated care, it clarifies roles and responsibilities at all levels of the organisation. It creates the conditions for more integrated working.
Integrated Healthcare Areas
Integrated Healthcare Areas are the substructures within each of the 6 health regions. There are 20 Integrated Healthcare Areas in total. They serve a population of between 150,000 and 450,000 and take account of local geographies, population size, needs and services.
Integrated Healthcare Areas bring together management of hospital and community services including non-HSE providers. This is crucial to supporting and enabling integrated health and social care.
Demographic details and maps of the Integrated Healthcare Areas are now available on both the Health Atlas Finder and the HSE Area Finder.
Community Healthcare Areas
A Community Healthcare Area (CHA) serves the population of a Community Healthcare Network (CHN). Each CHA covers the same area as a CHN but with a broader range of services. There are 96 CHAs in total.
The health and social care services in the CHA can include:
- CHN services
- Children’s Disability Network Teams
- Home Support services
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
- Adult Mental Health Services.
CHAs bring more community services together in an integrated way. Each CHA will be led by a General Manager. They are responsible for service deliver and for making sure these services meet the needs of the local population.
Integrated Service Delivery (ISD) model
The ISD model sets out how health regions and the Integrated Healthcare Areas operate. It includes the structures, ways of working and processes designed to make our services easier for people to navigate. It is also designed to support:
- more integration
- stronger accountability
- greater transparency
REOs and their teams have worked with staff and stakeholders on how best to apply the ISD model in each Integrated Healthcare Area. The structure of the management team in a standard Integrated Healthcare Area has been agreed and will be applied consistently in each IHA.
Watch a video introducing the ISD model (YouTube)
Networks of care
Networks of Care (NOCs) are a key feature of the ISD Model. They bring professionals from hospitals, community services, and social care together to help people who use our services have smoother healthcare journeys.
They help plan and deliver high-quality care consistently across the 6 health regions. They also help plan future services so they meet the needs of local communities. NoCs include a mix of health professionals such as doctors, nurses, health and social care professionals, service managers, along with patients, service users, and carer partners. NoCs are in place in some health regions. They will continue to develop once the Clinical Governance Framework has been updated in 2026.
Clinical Governance Framework
Clinical governance is a framework that sets out how healthcare teams are responsible and accountable for the quality and safety of care they provide to patients.
The existing framework is currently being reviewed to reflect:
- modern models of care
- advances in digital health
- new integrated health region structures
The updated framework will apply to all publicly funded acute and community services. It will support best practice while allowing services to adapt to local needs.
The review is being carried out in 4 phases:
- discovery
- design
- implementation
- review
The design phase is almost complete. The updated framework is due to be published soon.
Operating models
We have developed new operating models as part of the reform programme. These models define the functions, services, roles and activities delivered by the HSE Centre and those delivered by the health regions. They also outline how the HSE Centre and the health regions will work together to deliver services.
The operating models were developed by the HSE Centre and health region teams, following engagement with stakeholders, including the REOs, the senior leadership team and the Department of Health. Consultation is ongoing with staff representative groups.
You can request copies of the Operating Models for HSE Centre functions from the relevant National Director.
Patient and service user partnership
We continue to strengthen patient partnerships across the new health regions. This includes the appointment of national and regional patient and service user engagement (PSUE) leads and establishing regional and national PSUE councils. These structures provide a coordinated and consistent way to involve patients, families and communities in shaping health services across Ireland.
Plans for 2026:
- launch the Patient and Service User Partnership strategy
- launch a partnership hub
- host the fourth Partnership Conference
For further information, resources and updates are available on the Partnership Hub
Voluntary partnership
The health regions team worked with regional forum leads, the Coalition of Voluntary Organisations, and representative bodies to set up the Regional Voluntary Forum structure. This work is now complete. The Access and Integration team will now oversee the forums.
Each health region is setting up a Regional Voluntary Forum. These forums give voluntary organisations a voice in service delivery and planning. They support structured regional engagement between the HSE and the voluntary sector. The agreed Regional Voluntary Forum structure will be reviewed after 12 months.
Service arrangements
The REOs and the HSE Centre Compliance Unit agreed on a set of recommendations for the consistent management of service agreements. Responsibility for implementing the service agreements has transferred to the health regions.
Population-based planning
Health regions will prioritise and plan services that meet the regional population's needs.
The Population Based Planning (PBP) programme provides tools, resources and information to help the regions make decisions to improve their population’s health.
The population-based planning Decision support hub is available to all staff with a healthirl email address. It provides tools and guidance to support population-based planning.
It includes:
- strategic framework for PBP
- regional health profiles and core indicator sets
- prioritisation frameworks and tools
- service evaluation knowledge repository
For further information, contact: nationalhealthserviceimprovement@hse.ie
Population-based resource allocation
The 6 health regions will use a population-based approach when planning and funding services.
The Population-based resource allocation (PBRA) model has 3 strategic objectives:
- Fairly distribute available healthcare funding to regions according to their populations’ health needs and the cost of providing services to meet those needs.
- Address health inequalities by providing each region with the resources to meet the health needs of their populations equally.
- Facilitate the efficient and effective use of resources to support the delivery of person-centred integrated care.
A PBRA expert group led by the Department of Health, oversees the implementation and ongoing development of the PBRA approach. The needs-based approach takes account of:
- demographics like population size, age and sex
- level of deprivation
- distance to services
PBRA will apply to existing healthcare resources and will not influence the size of the overall health budget. This remains the responsibility of the Minister for Health and the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, along with their respective government departments.
Updates are available from the Department of Health
Preparing for change
We’ve developed a booklet to help staff and their teams prepare for and lead change initiatives around integrated care. ‘Creating the Conditions for Change and Integration’ is designed to support integrated working. It is part of our Change Guide programme of work, which focuses on building change capacity and capability across the system.
Read the ‘Creating the Conditions for Change and Integration’ booklet (PDF, 4.35 MB, 30 pages)
Learn more about why we’re integrating health and social care services
Watch a voiceover video on Integrated Service Delivery change management and transition (YouTube)
HR Leadership and Capability
The HR Leadership and Capability team supports the development of individuals, teams and leaders across the health service. It does this by providing learning, organisational development, and staff support initiatives to strengthen capability and teamwork.
Leadership and Capability supports include:
- interactive learning and development programmes
- online eLearning programmes and collaborative learning
- bespoke team interventions
- leadership development
- staff engagement support
Leadership and Capability also provides:
- confidential coaching and mentoring
- Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) support
Planning for staff transitions
People transition planning
HR at national and regional level is leading on people transition activities. It is also providing guidance to health regions and the HSE Centre throughout the period of transition.
Many staff will have questions about when changes will happen, why they are happening and who will be affected.
To support staff, National HR has developed a staff ‘Q and A’ document to address questions about the transition to health regions.
HR will continue to work directly with staff and their representative organisations through each stage of the process. We agreed reassignment principles with staff representative bodies via the National Joint Council. These principles are included in appendix 1 of the HR FAQ document.
Discussing health regions in team meetings
It is important that all staff are aware of the changes that are underway and the reasons for these changes. We are asking managers and staff to:
- educate yourself about the health region and HSE Centre reforms
- engage with your colleagues about what the health region reforms mean for you and your service
- use opportunities like team meetings to consider health regions as you plan and deliver your services
- keep up to date with changes in your region through regional updates, webinars and newsletters
To support team discussions, we've updated our slide deck presentation.
The slides are intended for sharing with staff and teams at team and department meetings.
Suggested speakers’ notes are included to support managers delivering the presentation.
Download the health regions slide presentation, December 2025 (PDF, 7.34 MB, 70 pages)
Contact
If you have a question about any of the information on this page or want more information about the health region implementation programme, email organisationalchange@hse.ie.
Any future updates about health regions will be published as news articles on the staff news page.