James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

Excuse me. I did not interrupt the Deputy. Perhaps he would like to hear some good news for the people of Cork and Cork University Hospital in particular. It has introduced new theatre practices, and their use in only five theatres, which is only 5% of all theatres in the country, has already yielded considerable savings. It uses its medical admissions unit in such a way that one quarter of patients who otherwise would have been admitted have been treated and sent home. This has resulted in approximately 22,000 bed days being saved. The savings are considerable and once it is spread throughout the system we will see even greater savings. We will seek to continue to transpose these good practices throughout the system. The failure in the past was that where excellence in care or process was identified it was not transposed throughout the rest of the system.

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