The Health Market Inquiry (HMI) has postponed the publication of its provisional findings and recommendations report to May 31, to afford HMI experts sufficient time to assess and interrogate submissions raised in stakeholder responses, which were submitted in April.
The report had been due to be released by the end of April.
In December 2017, the HMI published a series of nine analytical reports, with an invitation to stakeholders to engage with the content of these reports and make submissions by January 31.
To facilitate a fair opportunity to comment on the published expenditure analyses reports, the HMI opened a data access room to allow stakeholders’ external experts and advisers access to the underlying confidential information and data considered by the HMI in the compilation of the expenditure reports.
“Three key stakeholders accessed the data access room on various occasions from January to March. Additional time was required by these stakeholders to complete their analyses, to fully respond to the HMI expenditure reports,” the HMI said in a statement on Thursday.
The HMI was launched by the Competition Commission in January 2016 to assess the general state of competition in the private healthcare sector.