Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I take this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Mary Harney. I am sure the House will join with me in extending our sympathies to the Minister on the death of her mother.

I thank Deputy Ó Caoláin for raising the matter. The Teamwork Management Services Limited report, Improving Safety and Achieving Better Standards, provides a detailed assessment of hospital services and recommends an action plan for health services in the north east. The report finds that the present system, whereby five local hospitals deliver acute care to a relatively small population, has exposed patients to increased risks. The report recommends a three strand action plan as follows: the development of local services, with the existing five hospitals and primary and community care providers playing central roles; the development of a new regional acute hospital; and the development of a series of clinical networks which bind these local and regional services and are centred around the needs of patients, including networks for emergency care, surgery and critical care.

The Teamwork report includes a number of recommendations to improve patient care in the region. It particularly highlights the need to develop a high quality, responsive emergency and planned service in line with international standards. It recommends that there be one major regional hospital in the north east, supported by the five existing local hospitals. The new hospital is to provide emergency and trauma services on a 24-hour basis and also provide planned specialist procedures that are complex and require the facilities of a large regional hospital.

The hospital reconfiguration process is being overseen by the HSE steering group which is leading the project. A sub-committee of the steering group was established to progress the issue of site selection. Following a tendering process, the HSE appointed consultants to carry out an independent site location study. The study, which the HSE expects to be finalised in August, will take account of various criteria including demographics, access, planning and development considerations and interdependencies.

The first step in the development of a fully integrated regional health service is to ensure the people of the north east have local access to both routine planned care and immediate life saving emergency care. Over the next few years, in preparation for all acute emergency inpatient care and complex planned care being provided at a regional centre, services at the existing five hospitals will continue to be improved. The Department of Health and Children has been advised that the existing hospitals will continue to provide services which meet the majority of health needs of the community.

The HSE advises that the implementation plan will involve some level of redeployment of existing staff but that the plan will result in an increase in the overall number of staff in the region. The HSE has given an assurance that, in progressing the implementation of the Teamwork report, there will be no discontinuation of existing services until suitable alternative arrangements have been put in place.

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