Vol. 534 No. 1
56 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Health and Children the investigations which have been held into the high level of re-admissions within seven days of persons discharged from publicly funded acute general hospitals, in view of figures showing re-admissions running at around 500 per week; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9990/01]
82 Mr. McGinley asked the Minister for Health and Children the number of patients who were re-admitted to hospital within seven days of release in 2000. [9903/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 56 and 82 together.
The admission and discharge of patients from hospitals is solely a matter for the relevant clinician to determine based upon clinical priority.
Provisional data for 2000 shows that there were 23,544 cases of patients being re-admitted to hospital within one week of discharge. The comparable figure for 1999 was 24,447. These figures are derived from HIPE – Hospital In-Patient Enquiry – data which gives details of activity in publicly funded acute general hospitals in the State. HIPE records episodes of care and, therefore, the figures could include a number of re-admissions associated with the same patient. The figures include all in-patient re-admissions i.e. re-admissions for the same condition or an unrelated condition or planned re-admissions. It is also relevant to point out that there were over 870,000 in-patient discharges in 2000; thus the figure of 23,544 represents less than 3% of all discharges.
