Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

As I mentioned in an earlier reply, considerable improvements have been made in the delivery of services in emergency departments. Specific targeted actions are in train to deal with internal management in hospitals in order to improve patients' experiences. The HSE is also arranging for 200 additional beds to be contracted in private nursing homes with a particular focus on major Dublin hospitals. The HSE advises that 56 of these places have been filled since 18 January. In addition, the HSE advises that it will open an additional 100 long-stay beds from March onwards in a new community nursing unit at St. Mary's Hospital in the Phoenix Park. These will be used mainly for older people who have completed their acute phase of treatment. These developments follow on from the opening last December of 94 additional long stay beds at Cherry Orchard Hospital.

The HSE is proceeding with the implementation of an additional 360 home care packages in 2008 at a cost of €10 million. It is intended to prioritise these additional home care packages to support the Dublin area in particular, a number of the other large urban areas and some specific acute hospitals, such as Cork city, Waterford, Wexford, Limerick, Galway, Mayo. A total of 120 of these are scheduled for implementation in the first quarter. The combination of these measures and those outlined in my earlier reply will lead to continued improvement in emergency departments.

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