Dr. Peadar Gilligan:

I share the Deputy's frustration about the crowding of emergency departments because it has been my experience for many years of my career.

Things around the country are challenging, and that is because, essentially, unscheduled care is just that. Patients arrive when they feel their problems require urgent assessment. For that reason departments that cannot move those patients who require admission on to the wards will become crowded very quickly indeed. That is reflective of the capacity issue.

In defence of my management colleagues, they have undertaken a Herculean task in the context of Covid. They have reassigned resources and helped in the reallocation of spaces for clinical use and the reallocation of staff to work in various areas. Of course, there are always areas that can be improved on, but our colleagues in management are as clear on this as I am. They do not have the capacity they need to provide the care they wish to provide. Fifty-six patients on trolleys is a situation that should never happen. It happens because patients are not moving through the system quickly enough since there are no beds immediately available for them.