Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 246: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if all of the facilities, including theatres, funded by her Department at Tallaght hospital are fully operational; those that are not; the reasons such facilities provided at considerable expense have not been activated or commissioned; her plans to address these issues at an early date having regard to the wider catchment area and large population catered for by the Tallaght hospital; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35154/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

As this is a service matter it has been referred to the HSE for direct reply.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 247: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if all of the facilities including theatres funded by her Department at Naas General Hospital are fully operational; those that are not; the reasons such facilities provided at considerable expense have not been activated or commissioned; her plans to address these issues at an early date having particular regard to the wide catchment area and large population catered for by the Naas General Hospital; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35155/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

As this is a service matter it has been referred to the HSE for direct reply.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 248: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she has considered in full the serious implications for the public arising from the scaling down of services at a number of general hospitals throughout the country; if any comparisons have been made with other jurisdictions where a similar action was taken and which resulted in a dramatic deterioration in the quality and level of hospital services; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35156/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I do not accept that necessary measures by the HSE to ensure that acute hospital services are delivered to budget and in line with the commitments in the 2010 National Service Plan will be detrimental to the quality and level of hospital services. Maintaining patient safety and service levels is critical in all management decision-making in relation to cost containment. Expenditure control is focused on protecting front-line services and in particular emergency services, maintaining the quality and safety of services, delivering to service plan targets and protecting jobs.

The principal measures being employed include reducing pay and non-pay costs, controlling recruitment and absenteeism (which has a direct impact on the staffing costs of frontline services), redeployment of corporate and support staff to frontline roles, implementing measures to ensure that hospital care is delivered as efficiently as possible, improved bed utilisation and discharge planning, improving collection of income due from private patients and procurement initiatives.

Increasingly, the focus of the health service is on the quality of service outputs and the patient outcomes being achieved with the resources available. This is the approach being taken in health systems throughout the world. The National Service Plan 2010 commits the HSE to a range of measures to ensure that services are delivered more efficiently. These include carrying out an increased proportion of surgery on a day basis, increasing rates of day-of-surgery admission and working to reduce average length of stay. As a result, the level of activity in the acute hospital system is projected to be broadly on a par with that achieved in 2009.