The HSE Winter Preparedness Plan for Winter 21/22 builds on the significant investment in last year’s Winter Plan and the additional capacity delivered in health services in 2021, and centres on three core objectives: ED avoidance, patient flow and hospital egress to mitigate the expected challenges in providing emergency care this winter while also continuing to respond to Covid-19.The Plan recognises that a whole system response is required and outlines how the HSE proposes to manage these challenges across primary, community and acute care including measures to allow the public system to access private healthcare capacity.This plan endorses a home first approach, enabling and facilitating patients to receive the most appropriate care in their own homes and communities.The Plan contains a number of initiatives to deliver its core objectives of ED avoidance by treating people at home or in the community and by allowing them to return home following hospitalisation quickly. These initiatives include:
- GP Liaison Nurses to manage direct referrals from GPs to ED;
- Geriatric Community Support;
- Enhancement and expansion of Frailty Intervention Therapy Team models;
- Community Response Teams (nursing and therapies);
- Community respiratory admission avoidance teams;
- Expansion of the National Ambulance Service Pathfinder initiative
- Additional home support hours and
- COPD outreach teams.
Emergency Departments across the country are experiencing high attendance levels. The EDs must prioritise those with serious or life threatening injuries and illnesses. There are other options available to those requiring less urgent care. For example, many patients with limb injuries can go to an Injury Unit and others with illnesses needing less urgent treatment can be seen and treated by their GP or referred by their GP to an Assessment Unit the following day.
In relation to the particular query raised regarding the emergency department at Tallaght University Hospital, as this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.
