Duncan Smith
Question:416. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Health the monthly expected capacity of public hospitals across waiting lists for inpatient, outpatient and endoscopy appointments. [10294/20]
View answerTuesday, 9 June 2020
Questions (416)
Written answers
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic the HSE had to take measures to defer all non-urgent elective scheduled care activity, including outpatient clinics. This was to ensure patient safety and that all appropriate resources were made available for Covid-19 related activity and time-critical essential work. This decision was in line with the advice issued by the World Health Organisation, and the National Action Plan published on 16 March. The trajectory of the disease means there is now an opportunity for increasing the provision of non-covid care including more routine care.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has approved a number of recommendations relating to protecting and maximising the delivery of essential time-critical non-Covid-19 care alongside Covid-19 care. On 5 May, NPHET agreed that its recommendation of 27 March, in regard to the pausing of all non-essential health services should be replaced, in relation to acute care, with a recommendation that delivery of acute care be determined by appropriate clinical and operational decision making.
Guidance on patient pathways to mitigate the risks associated with the delivery of non-covid care, for patients and healthcare workers, and support safe delivery of care has been developed under the auspices of the Expert Advisory Subgroup of NPHET (EAG) and approved in principle by NPHET. It is recommended that in-patient occupancy levels are maintained at 80% to facilitate the requirement to address surge safely. The measures approved by NPHET will impact a number of areas such as workflow, patient pathways, patient engagement and communication, infrastructure, physical distancing, capacity and resources. The HSE advise that the capacity that will be available under these measures will vary from one site to the next and from one service to the next; currently new patient pathways are being established and tested however full year capacity has not been fully established at this point. Additionally, in order to continue to provide access for patients there has been a considerable growth and investment in virtual outpatient consultations for many specialties across the system. The HSE advise that based on submissions from 36 sites, a total of 80,730 virtual outpatient consultations took place in April. This represents approximately 50% of the overall OPD activity for April. Of the patients seen, 10,379 were new patients and the Did Not Attend (DNA) rates recorded for virtual activity is reported at less than 3%.
My Department, the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund are currently working together to estimate the impact of Covid-19 on Scheduled Care waiting lists with a view to informing activity going forward. As the system continues to deliver Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 care side-by-side over a more prolonged period, my Department and the HSE will continue to work closely together to protect essential non-Covid-19 acute care and progress the provision of more routine non-Covid-19 care.