Joan Collins
Question:269. Deputy Joan Collins asked the Minister for Health the number of beds and ICU beds that make up the 30% of beds acquired from the private hospital sector. [4807/21]
View answerThursday, 28 January 2021
Questions (269)
Written answers
Following the termination of the original private hospital agreement in June 2020, the Government mandated the HSE to seek to agree with the private hospitals a new arrangement which would provide the HSE with access to private hospital capacity to include a safety net arrangement in the event of a surge of Covid-19 cases.
The HSE has agreed a new safety net arrangement with all 18 private hospitals. They have signed Service Level Agreements to provide additional hospital capacity to the HSE, to deal with the current surge in Covid-19 cases and any further surges in the pandemic, if they arise within the next 12 months. The agreement provides that the HSE can access between up to 15% or 30% of the private hospitals’ capacity depending of the incidence of the disease in the community or the number of Covid-19 positive patients in general or ICU beds in public hospitals.
The HSE has confirmed to that the overall volume available to the public sector with access to 15% of private hospital capacity would be 322 beds and 644 beds at 30%. The agreement also provides that the access to bed capacity includes access to ancillary services such as ICU beds, theatres and diagnostic services.