To date, the HSE has reported a year-on-year increase of approximately 5% in Emergency Department attendances. Despite increased demand, there has been a decrease of almost 5% in numbers of patients waiting on trolleys.
My Department, working with the HSE, has been driving a range of integrated initiatives to alleviate overcrowding in EDs, including: reducing attendances by expanding primary care services, providing additional home help and homecare packages, increasing hospital capacity and improving how hospitals manage demand for emergency care.
Primary care services are being expanded to alleviate pressures on EDs. 13 Community Intervention Teams are in place and in the first half of 2016 have reduced hospital bed requirements by approximately 73 beds per day. 92 Primary Care centres have opened with a further 39 centres at the preliminary stages of development. A project to increase access to diagnostic services in GP surgeries is currently delivering approximately 1,300 ultrasounds per month, while the GP Minor Surgery pilot has delivered just over 4,200 procedures since commencement. Also, in the first half of 2016 usage of out-of-hours GP services increased by 14% on last year.
In September the HSE published the “Winter Initiative 2016 – 2017”, which provides €40 million of additional funding for winter preparedness. Under this Initiative, Community Intervention Team services are being expanded in four regions of the country and the availability of aids and appliances in primary care has been increased to facilitate patients being discharged from hospital back to their own homes.
