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Health Services

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 July 2021

Tuesday, 27 July 2021

Ceisteanna (2588, 2590)

Peadar Tóibín

Ceist:

2588. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Health the number of hospital beds across the health service; the number of ICU and critical care beds; and the number of mental health beds across the health service. [38294/21]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Peadar Tóibín

Ceist:

2590. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Health the existing capacity of the healthcare service. [38296/21]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

I propose to take Questions Nos. 2588 and 2590 together.

Based on provisional data provided by the HSE in April, there was an average of 11,171 inpatient beds and 2,262 day beds/places open in acute hospitals during 2021 from January to the end of March. The Deputy can find further details in this regard in the Department's Open Beds Report for March 2021, which was published online earlier this month: www.gov.ie/en/publication/c17a6-department-of-health-open-beds-report-for-march-2021/.

The Government has funded significant initiatives across the health service to expand capacity, allocating €600m to the HSE Winter Plan 2020/21. An additional 834 acute beds over the number of beds on 1 January 2020 have been delivered, with 229 more expected by the end of this year. In addition, 73 sub-acute beds have been added with 40 more planned by the end of 2021.

At the start of last year, permanent adult critical care capacity in Ireland stood at 255 beds, according to the National Office of Clinical Audit. Funding for a further 40 adult critical care beds was provided as part of the response to Covid-19 in March 2020. A Strategic Plan for Critical Care was noted by Government in December 2020. This Plan aims to increase capacity to 321 by end-2021 and to 446 in the longer term. Funding of €52m provided for 2021 will see the 40 beds provided in 2020 retained permanently and a further 26 added, to bring permanent baseline capacity to 321 by the end of 2021. The HSE has advised that 42 of these 66 beds are now open, bringing baseline capacity to 297, with the number open on any particular day fluctuating as a result of a variety of factors.

The details requested by the Deputy in relation to the number of beds across all types of hospitals (i.e., including non-acute beds), the number of mental health beds, and the overall capacity of the healthcare service are operational matters and require information to be provided by the HSE. However, members of the Oireachtas are advised that the HSE is currently unable to access the information to answer Parliamentary Questions due to the recent cyber-attack, which has required a temporary shut-down of HSE IT systems. The disruption to service is on-going, and the HSE is working hard to restore its IT capacity and resume normal services. Members of the Oireachtas will be advised as soon as the HSE is again in a position to provide responses to PQs and are encouraged to resubmit their Parliamentary Questions at that point.

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