Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

Patient care is paramount in South Tipperary General Hospital. The situation is a priority for hospital management and is being continuously and actively reviewed. Additional staff are in the emergency department to ensure patient care and safety at all times. Hospital management wishes to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of all staff during this busy period to ensure that all those waiting for treatment and admission are accommodated in a manner that is in keeping with proper dignity and respect for all of the people in these trying circumstances.

The hospital has experienced an 11% increase in activity from 2011. Of this increase, general medicine has increased by 32%. There has also been a 14% increase in patients from the north Tipperary area. On a normal day, about 108 people attend the emergency department and 21 of these patients, on average, are admitted. From time to time, a surge may occur in patients attending and this has been the case recently.

At 10 a.m. on 27 June 2012, there were 13 patients on trolleys. It is planned that at least four of these patients will be discharged today. In addition, four other patients will be discharged later today from wards to assessment beds or step down community hospitals. Further discharges may be made following ward rounds during the day.

The hospital escalation plan is in operation. The plan includes additional inpatient surge capacity, regular assessments of all emergency department patients by hospital consultants, evaluation of inpatients for discharge and management of elective activity. There are a number of meetings held throughout the day between the bed manager, the discharge planner, director of nursing, clinical director and hospital management to review and manage the situation.

Liaison officers in the special delivery unit, SDU, are in touch with management on a daily basis and the situation is monitored as part of the three times daily trolley count by staff in the SDU. The SDU high intensity support programme is working with senior management to resolve the issues of overcrowding and reduce the number of patients on trolleys.

The SDU is working closely with hospital management to implement integrated discharge planning and to further develop the acute medical assessment unit in an effort to decrease admissions and length of stay. In this context, it is noted that the hospital's average length of stay, at 3.5 days, is below the national average and the latest hospital bed capacity review identifies the appropriateness of admissions and care as well within the recommended national levels.

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