Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Absolutely. With regard to acute medical units, AMUs, to which the Deputy referred, a number of hospitals, including St. James's Hospital in Dublin, have them. A number of other hospitals sought to completely over-spec what the HSE and the Department felt was required. If people in the health care system think a pot of money is available, they sometimes feel they have to go for the largest possible slice of that money as a cure for all their ills. The HSE made a decision, with my support, that until we knew the outcome of the mapping exercise, which was examining all the internal functions of the hospital, we would not allocate additional funding to be spent in the same way. That exercise, which will be published shortly, hospital by hospital, details a significant number of interesting facts. For example, in some hospitals 100 staff work in accident and emergency units and deal with 100 patients a day, a ratio of one staff member to one patient. A patient must often go through a number of layers before he or she can get near a staff member to treat him or her.

The doctors on the north side of Dublin submitted a tender which the HSE felt was not adequate to provide the service. I understand the HSE is in discussions with the doctors on the north side of Dublin. Professor Drumm recruited Dr. Sean Maguire, who set up the first out-of-hours facilities in the UK and, subsequently, in Ireland. He is a doctor with huge experience in this area and is currently spearheading the discussions on the out-of-hours facilities with the doctors on the north side of Dublin, which I understand will be completed soon.

The MRI scanner for Beaumont is a second scanner. I understand a mobile facility was to be acquired. The hospital is in a position to make that happen very quickly.

As the Deputy is aware, public procurement means that although a decision may be made today, unfortunately it takes many months before some of these developments can happen, for good public procurement reasons.

The focus on accident and emergency services is thorough and robust. I had a meeting with the Health Service Executive yesterday which dealt with many of these issues, particularly care of the elderly. A package worth €150 million has been made available for this purpose. If this money is used to support people at home, it will have a major impact on the flow of patients through hospitals.

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