Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with Deputy O'Reilly on this issue. This is a really important point because we never have this conversation. When something goes well in some hospitals and it does not in others, we always look at it from the perspective of what extra supports the hospitals need, and many hospitals need extra supports. We have used the example of Limerick today in terms of reconfiguration and extra pressure. It has to be accepted that some hospitals are being better run and managed than others. Some hospitals are making sure that come Friday evening, patients who are clinically well enough to go home are discharged. In other hospitals, the number of patients discharged is extraordinarily minimal because proper processes have not been put in place. I am not just talking about the rate of increase slowing but about the numbers actually halving from January to July in a minority of hospitals. All I am saying is we always talk in the health service about the bad performers. At some point we have to decide to take the good ones and find out what is going on with the four or five really good examples. That is the only point I was making.