Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 June 2020
Special Committee on Covid-19 Response
Use of Private Hospitals
Mr. Martin Varley:
I do not have full detail on that, but I recall commentary on it at the time, in the early stages. My understanding, and this is subject to verification, is that the agreement entered into with the private hospitals in the UK effectively allowed more flexibility in terms of what was being purchased and taken over, so to speak. As such the private hospital deal in the UK allowed the possibility for capacity that was not required to be used to treat the patients in those hospitals that would otherwise require urgent care. That in some respects would account for the fact that in the UK, they were probably - I stress probably because I do not have all the detail - paying for the capacity they sought, but it not being all the capacity in the hospital, or else the capacity being used. In the private hospital agreement here, however, I think it was covering all the capacity. That is the sort of detail that becomes problematic in trying to optimise capacity and getting good use of it.
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