Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-North Leitrim, Independent)

I thank Deputies Brady, Kitt and Conlon for sharing their time and am glad to have the opportunity to speak about Sligo General Hospital. The Sligo General Hospital management team is currently developing a cost containment plan to ensure that the hospital can deliver on service targets while remaining within the allocated budget. This plan will examine all areas to see where efficiencies and cost savings can be made. Staff have been briefed on the overall budgetary situation and on what is being proposed to address this.

Despite the financial challenge faced this year, Sligo General Hospital will deliver the level of care and service targets for which it is funded, as set out in the 2010 service plan. This includes 14,770 inpatient cases, 23,343 day cases and 92,256 outpatient visits to be delivered in 2010. On behalf of myself and the general population of Sligo and north Leitrim, I thank the 1,400 members of staff of the hospital, from the back door staff to the front door staff, who provide this service. They do an enormous amount of work and deserve our thanks and I want that to be on the House record.

While a reduction of some services within the hospital is inevitable, we are endeavouring to keep the reduction to a minimum to ensure the impact on service users will be kept to the minimum. There are more beds open in Sligo General Hospital today, 6 October, than on 6 October last year, despite what we have read in the press or heard from the media. We must do the right thing for the future and must eliminate inefficiencies and maximise the use of our resources to protect the future of our services. These are challenges in all health services across the country. Given the current economic climate, we in the west must be in position now and for the future to meet these challenges and ensure we have the best possible service for the people living in our area.

With regard to capital investment, I would like to mention that the extension to Sligo General Hospital has been approved for development as a public private partnership. Work has advanced on the preparation of the business case and other scoping information needed to support the cost-benefit analysis required for a project of this scale. Enabling works must be dealt with before the main project can commence on site. Detailed design is in progress on the main advance enabling works - the ring road - to ensure this is tendered and completed in time for construction of the main project. A planning application for the ring road will be submitted next week and the HSE will go to tender at the end of November. Construction of the ring road is scheduled to commence in early 2011 and market soundings are also being carried out to explore procurement options for the construction of a multi-storey car park to meet the increasing car parking requirements of the hospital, including those associated with all planned developments. The lead-in construction time for the PPP is approximately two years.

Many good things have happened. The acute assessment unit opened in the past 12 months, which is positive. Sligo General Hospital was also approved for a picture archiving communications system, a second oncology post has been approved and funded and we are awaiting two more posts. The hospital was deemed the fourth best performing hospital in Ireland last year.

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