Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Pat Breen for raising this matter on the Adjournment. I am making this reply on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Harney, the Minister for Health and Children.

As the Deputy is aware, the provision of services at Ennis General Hospital is the responsibility of the Health Service Executive.

With regard to the CT scanner, the Health Service Executive has informed the Department that the mid-west hospitals trust has agreed to provide funds towards the purchase and installation of a CT scanner at Ennis General Hospital.

The Health Service Executive has carried out a review of the CT scanner requirement. The number of CT procedures continues to grow in Ireland year on year. The hospital has been given approval by the HSE to purchase a six-slice CT scanner. The HSE is currently considering the revenue requirement for the new scanner and the cost of operating the scanner on a current basis.

People from County Clare currently have to travel to Limerick or Galway for a CT scan. The provision of CT scanning facilities at Ennis General Hospital will mean people from County Clare can receive CT scans in Ennis. The new CT scan will also have a significant effect on the workload of the regional hospitals. It must be noted that the more commonly required CT scans account for close to all of the scans required in county hospitals.

Common CT examinations such as pelvic and abdominal, brain, head and neck, chest and spine studies account for most of the CT procedures required. The use of multi-slice CT scanning for specialty procedures, such as vascular and cardiac CT procedures, made up less than 5% of the total number of CTs performed internationally and exclusively in large tertiary hospitals. The Health Service Executive envisages that multi-slice 64-slice scanners will be installed in the major teaching and regional hospitals to facilitate specialty scanning, particularly in the area of cardiology.

In the past year the Health Service Executive has taken the approach that CT scanning be available in its general hospitals to provide the more commonly ordered CT scans and studies locally and relieve the demand on the tertiary centres. In 2005, the Health Service Executive gave approval to proceed with the installation of six-slice CT scanners at a number of hospitals.

Costs rise significantly as the number of slices increase. In addition the six-slice scanner is considerably more robust than the higher slice capacity units resulting in less down time. For the type of scans being carried out, it is a more efficient scanner.

In addition to the provision of a new CT scanner in Ennis, a major new development at the hospital is at planning stage. A project team was set up to identify priority developments at the hospital so that the long-term requirements of the county can be addressed. The priority areas for development in phase 1A include the upgrade of wards, the accident and emergency department, the radiology department, including the CT scanner, the outpatients department, the intensive care unit, the concourse and a general infrastructure upgrade. These developments will cost more than €30 million to design, build and equip.

The Health Service Executive has recently issued approval to progress the design of the project to stage three, subject to the functional content of the planning brief being reviewed following the outcome of the review of the acute hospital services in the mid-west.

The Government is investing capital funding of more than €550 million on 400 individual health projects this year and more will be invested in 2007. We are committed to developing county hospitals such as Ennis to provide appropriate services for the people in County Clare. The Minister's policy is to provide safe, high quality services that achieve the best possible outcomes for patients. This will mean that those services that can be safely delivered locally are delivered locally. More complex services that require specialist input are concentrated in regional or national centres of excellence.

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