Immediately following my appointment I set about establishing the Special Delivery Unit to unblock access to acute services by improving the flow of patients through the system. The SDU is focusing initially on emergency departments and will be working to support hospitals in addressing excessive waiting times for admission to hospital. The Special Delivery Unit (SDU) is working closely with key teams in the HSE and the NTPF. The SDU will also be working with hospitals to conduct a performance diagnostic analysis of the unscheduled care system in the acute hospital sector over the coming months.
My view is we need to embed performance management in the system to sustain shorter waiting times. As the Deputy knows, this Government has an ambitious programme of reform which includes institutional reforms and economic incentives which will make health care providers truly accountable for delivering patient centred care. I can assure the Deputy that I have the commitment and determination to deliver this agenda.
I am very impressed with the work already begun by the Special Delivery Unit. Our problems did not arise overnight and they will take time to resolve but they are being tackled in a systematic and relentless fashion through the SDU. I do not minimise the scale of the task before us but I am very confident that the Special Delivery Unit will provide a real performance management function for the Irish hospital system and will drive down waiting times.
I believe we must concentrate on getting the best possible services for patients from the budgets available to us. This means we need to focus on how beds are used, on the throughput of patients, on reducing length of stay to international norms and on having as many procedures as possible carried out as day cases rather than inpatient work.
The work of the SDU, together with implementation of the Clinical Care Programmes in the HSE, will help to improve the efficiency of our hospitals, allowing us to treat as many patients as possible within budget. I believe that pursuing efficiencies through these means will be a far more productive approach than debating the number of beds open or closed at any one time.
The emphasis for the HSE in 2012 will continue to be to make the most effective use of acute bed capacity through shorter length of stay, increased rates of day-of-surgery admission and more day surgery. In this way the acute hospital system can ensure that, within the level of resources available, it facilitates the maximum number of patients with safe, effective and efficient care.
