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

Over the last number of months the HSE has implemented initiatives to reduce emergency department overcrowding and wait times. From mid-January to the end of January there was a very significant increase in daily trolley numbers. This was due to higher numbers of patients presenting with flu-like and respiratory illnesses and a 10% increase in the number of older people presenting. In total, there was a 9% increase in emergency department attendances throughout January, which is an enormous increase. This has eased in recent days and, fingers crossed, that will continue. Today's trolley count is 15% lower than it was on the same day in 2015; it was 388 this morning, of which 190 people were on trolleys for more than nine hours.

In 2015, significant additional resources of €117 million, additional hospital beds and increased staffing have all been put in place in a four-pronged approach to tackling the problem. In order to reduce the number of patients having to attend emergency departments, community intervention teams and services have been expanded. The HSE has also driven a number of initiatives to expand hospital capacity. Some 338 hospital beds are being opened or re-opened, and more than 750 new nurses and 80 new consultants have been employed in the health service during 2015. Also, there have been additional measures in 2015 to support timely patient discharge from hospital, including reducing waiting times for nursing home places to four weeks, an additional 4,002 transitional care places, 224 public community beds and 2,250 home care packages. Mount Carmel also opened last year as a new community hospital. A new escalation protocol has been implemented, which sets out action that hospitals must take when overcrowding occurs, to provide better and safer patient care.

In 2016, health will have funding of almost €14 billion from the Exchequer, which is an increase of 7% on the original allocation for 2015. Of the 2016 health budget, €4 billion has been designated in the HSE national service plan for acute hospital services. This accounts for about one third of the health budget. With the full operation of the expanded services introduced during 2015 and continued productivity and efficiency improvements, emergency care will be delivered at or above the 2015 level.

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