Bernard Allen
Question:127 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health if he will make a statement on the amount of savings achieved by reducing the 24-hour accident and emergency services in the Dublin area.
Written Answers. - Dublin Accident and Emergency Services.
From the information available, it is difficult to assess savings from the accident and emergency rota introduced in September 1991. In order to assess such savings it would be necessary to quantify the cost of the additional workload processed by hospitals on-call and offset this against savings achieved when hospitals were not on-call. This is complicated by the fact that emergency admissions normally increase over the period in question and the impact of these admissions would have to be considered in any costing exercise, both in terms of accident and emergency departments and other areas of a hospital.
Following consideration by my Department of a report by the Dublin Accident and Emergency Steering Group which detailed a number of difficulties experienced under the rota arrangement, the Government decided in December 1991 that the 24-hour service in all six Dublin accident and emergency hospitals should be resumed.