Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am committed to securing and further developing the role of Portlaoise hospital as a constituent hospital within the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group, which also includes St. James's, Tallaght, Tullamore, Naas and the Coombe hospitals.

The hospital group and the HSE acute hospitals division are examining the scope of services in Portlaoise, and other hospitals in the group, subsequent to the recent Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, report on the hospital. The important point here is that work is being undertaken to strengthen services in Portlaoise hospital from a patient safety and quality perspective and also to ensure that services that are viable are safety assured and appropriately resourced and that services that are not viable or cannot be made safe are discontinued.

Detailed planning is under way for staff to develop the best clinical services for all patients. Consultation is ongoing this month with the national clinical leads for medicine, surgery, critical care, patient transport, emergency medicine, obstetrics and paediatrics, as well as the national ambulance service. Further consultation with local general practitioners, GPs, is expected to begin this month and other stakeholders will also be engaged.

Decisions will be made on the basis of ensuring patient safety and getting best outcomes for patients, not financial or political considerations. Any change to services at Portlaoise, including emergency department services, will be undertaken in a planned and orderly manner and will take account of existing patient flows, demands in other hospitals and the need to develop particular services at Portlaoise in the context of overall service reorganisation within the hospital group.

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