Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 December 2011
124 Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Health his views on the length of waiting time in the accident and emergency department at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 9; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39360/11]
View answerI have said very clearly on many occasions that the situation in our hospital emergency departments where people must wait for unacceptably long periods on trolleys will not be allowed to continue. For this reason, one of my first actions as Minister for Health was to set about establishing the Special Delivery Unit.
The SDU is establishing an infrastructure based on information collection and analysis, hospital by hospital, so that we will know what is actually happening in real time. It is providing information tools for hospital managers, including clinical managers, to map and measure bed capacity in their hospital depending on variations in for example the average length of stay of patients. This will allow us to begin to embed performance management in the system, to manage bed capacity and to sustain shorter waiting times.
The problems in our emergency departments are complex and they did not arise overnight. The particular issues vary from hospital to hospital and some of the solutions will depend on local factors. As part of the process of forming the overall picture of the emergency department situation nationally, the SDU has identified fifteen hospitals which between them account for 80% of the trolley wait problem in the hospital system. Eight Hospitals have been identified for very high support including Beaumont. Liaison Officers from the SDU are working pro-actively to support these sites.
I have also agreed that some additional funding may be provided, on a strictly once off basis, based on specific proposals from the hospital to reduce waiting times between now and the end of the year which will help address issues such as delayed discharges. Adherence to the agreed criteria will be closely monitored by the SDU.
The conditions and performance measures which Beaumont and other hospitals will have to meet are as follows; for the remainder of the year and throughout January 2012 no patient will wait more than 23 hours in the hospital's Emergency Department. In addition the trolley wait target must be maintained at least 70% below the maximum daily trolley count since January 2010. Other conditions/performance measures include:
Seven day ward/discharge rounds
Achievement of all Acute Medicine Programme milestones
Implementation of approved measures to effectively stream elderly patients.
In relation to Beaumont some €0.4m has been approved to help alleviate emergency department pressures including:
Provision of rapid access nurse service seven days a week
Purchasing assisted discharge care packages.
Increasing bed capacity through the development of a 31 bedded ward encompassing transit lounge, surge capacity and discreet streaming of delayed discharge patients.
Increasing cardiology diagnostics during the week and on Saturdays to enable weekend discharges.
