Gerry Adams
Question:677. Deputy Gerry Adams asked the Minister for Health the number of elective procedures and surgeries cancelled at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda from December 2016 to date. [54362/17]
View answerTuesday, 16 January 2018
Questions (677)
Written answers
I fully acknowledge the distress and inconvenience for patients and their families when elective procedures are cancelled.
Maintaining scheduled care access for all patients is a key priority for hospitals, and balancing this with emergency demand at times is challenging. However, all efforts are made by hospitals to limit cancellations particularly for clinically urgent procedures.
Cancellation of elective procedures can occur for a variety of exceptional reasons including cancellations because a bed or the clinical team are not available, cancellations by the patient or because the patient may not be fit for surgery at the time.
Based on data provided by the NTPF, collated from reports by hospitals, approximately 3,400 elective procedures, on average, are cancelled per month. However, this must be seen in context. The most recent data available shows that for 2016, typically in a month, there were approximately 53,000 admissions to acute hospitals on a daycase and an inpatient basis.
It is essential that hospitals continue to improve how they manage, and balance, the demand for emergency care with the planning of elective procedures, to minimise the impact on patients. In addition, the HSE continues to improve its processes to minimise the number of sessions lost when patients cancel or do not attend for their procedures.
In response to the particular query raised, as this is a service matter, I have asked the HSE to respond to the Deputy directly.