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

I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn for the opportunity to speak to the House on this issue. In preparation for the 2015-2016 winter period, hospital groups have provided comprehensive winter resilience plans to the HSE, outlining how they will implement an integrated approach across primary, community, social and acute services to manage winter pressures. This approach is intended both to avoid unnecessary admissions to acute hospitals and expedite discharges from hospital. If emergency department overcrowding occurs, all hospitals have escalation plans to manage patient flow and patient safety in a responsive, controlled and planned way that supports and ensures the delivery of optimal patient care. In November, a national emergency department congestion escalation directive was issued on foot of discussions between the director general of the HSE and me on how best to reduce emergency department congestion with all of the available resources, both within and outside of acute hospitals. This directive requires hospitals to implement their escalation plan whenever their emergency department experiences overcrowding. As part of this, acute hospitals are now required to take specific steps to reduce overcrowding such as the postponement of non-urgent elective procedures. During winter planning, Letterkenny University Hospital made a decision to scale back the number of scheduled inpatient admissions for approximately six weeks from 4 January to mid-February 2016. This is primarily to manage the predicted increased number of patients who normally attend and are admitted to the hospital via the emergency department at this time of year. This is already done in many other hospitals around the country and is considered to be good planning. In the past, in January, procedures were often cancelled or deferred at short notice. Rather than scheduling and then potentially deferring patients, the hospital has decided to reduce the number of inpatient procedures scheduled during this period to ensure that in so far as possible, patients who are scheduled are admitted and cancellations are therefore less frequent.

This temporary reduction will ensure that each surgeon has a dedicated amount of theatre time in January and that emergency surgery, including cancer surgery, is prioritised. The hospital regrets any inconvenience this situation may cause to patients and their families and I wish to echo that. However, I have been assured by the HSE and Saolta that the effect of these arrangements will be kept under constant review and urgent patients, including cancer patients, will continue to be seen. The hospital's overall aim is to avoid unnecessary deferrals or cancellations of planned surgery and ensure that hospital resources are targeted at emergency work during this period of the year when the pressure on the emergency department is greatest.

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