Labour Party health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan said the HSE bed capacity review published today "does little more than restate an argument on bed policy that HSE chief executive Brendan Drumm has been making for the last two years".
The report urges a move away from dependence on acute hospital beds and says some 20,000 such beds would be needed in the system by 2020, based on increased demand.
"The report contains many elements that the Labour Party would be happy to endorse such as an increase in the number of step-down beds, better community care facilities, better community care provision for people with chronic illnesses, and improvements in work practices in hospitals," Ms O'Sullivan said.
"However, we didn't need an expensive consultants' report to tell us that,and the HSE should get on with the business of delivering on these as a matter of urgency."
"Unfortunately it is unlikely that the highly centralised and bureaucratic HSE will ever be able to resolve the deep-seated problem in our health system without the introduction of major reforms such as universal health insurance," Ms O'Sullivan added.
Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said the HSE "is guilty of hypocrisy" in again promising a world class health service with improved primary and acute hospital care "while their current cutbacks are hitting patient care at all levels of the health service".
"Professor Drumm has consistently opposed increasing the number of acute hospital beds. There is widespread agreement that 3,000 additional beds are needed to fill the gaps created by cutbacks in the 80s and since and by our growing and ageing population," he said.
"It is not a case of either more beds or more efficiency. We need both but the Government and the HSE have failed to deliver both."