Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Caoláin spoke about the understandable concern about delays and overcrowding in accident and emergency departments. As has been made clear on a number of occasions, dealing with delays in emergency departments is a priority for the Government. The Minister for Health commissioned the emergency department task force last December to provide focus and momentum in dealing with the challenges associated with emergency department overcrowding. The task force last met on Monday, 12 October, and significant progress has been made with all of the relevant parties, including representatives of the nurses organisations, involved in the preparation and delivery of a plan. Delayed discharges are reducing steadily as we speak. The waiting times for funding of packages has been reduced from 11 weeks at the beginning of this year to between two and four weeks now. Transitional care funding has supported approximately 2,000 people who have been approved for the fair deal scheme to move from acute to non-acute care while awaiting a long-term care placement. Over 1,200 additional home care packages will have been provided by the end of this year. Deputy Ó Caoláin and most other Deputies will know from speaking to the relatives of patients that the improvements in the delivery of home care packages have been very widely welcomed and appreciated. In addition, 140 additional public nursing home beds, 24 additional contracted beds in, for instance, Moorehall in County Louth, and 65 short-stay beds in Mount Carmel have all opened in 2015. These provide a mixture of rehabilitation and transitional care for patients who require assisted convalescence before they return home or enter long-term care.

The director general of the HSE is now co-chairing the emergency department task force implementation group from now until March 2016. He has taken that decision in order to ensure that all of the relevant parts of the health services, including acute, social and primary care, are provided with the optimum resources in order to deal with the particular challenges associated with the winter months. Additional funding of €74 million was provided in April of this year. Deputy Ó Caoláin will have seen a very significant additional supplementary allocation for the HSE and the Department of Health in the context of the budget. He will also have seen a significant additional allocation for next year. In addition to the aforementioned measures, an extra €25 million has been invested in support services which provide alternatives to, or relieve pressure on, our hospitals.

The second part of the Deputy's question related to recruitment of nurses by the HSE. I certainly hope that those who are currently completing their nursing degrees and training will give full consideration to a career in nursing in Ireland. I am aware of people who are taking that option but it is not for everybody. It has been traditional for many nurses and other health professionals to go abroad, either for a protracted or limited period of time, to develop their careers. That is understandable and that model has operated in Ireland for a long time. The HSE has been sending out recruiters and using social media and other methods of communication to attract nurses who left the country when there was a moratorium on recruiting public health staff, other than front-line staff. I am glad to say that we are now past that situation because of the economic recovery and this year there are between 400 and 500 extra nurses working in the HSE.

I agree with the Deputy that much progress is still to be made but we have come a long way from where we were at the height of the economic difficulties that befell the country.

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