Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I always listen to the Deputy's sensible suggestions. The national clinical programme for stroke has been in place since early 2010. The vision of the programme is to design standardised models of integrated care pathways for the delivery of clinical care. Early supported discharge is a rehabilitation programme that aims to accelerate discharge home from hospital and provide rehabilitation and support in the home setting in order to maximise independence as quickly as possible after stroke. Pilot early supported discharge programmes in three sites in Ireland have proved to be effective, with up to 35% of stroke patients being discharged successfully.

The HSE has advised my Department that its integrated care programme for patient flow has identified the need to strengthen the integrated patient-centred approach. Improving discharge processes is not only necessary to deliver safe and truly person-centred care but also to optimise bed utilisation.

Funding has been allocated by the clinical strategy and programmes division to the integrated care programme to support the national clinical programme for stroke to expand the early support discharge stroke programme in 2017. This involves increasing staffing in three existing early supported discharge stroke teams and developing two new teams at a full-year cost of €460,051.

Early supported discharge complements the range of measures to improve stroke care including 24-7 access to thrombolysis and increasing the number of stroke units to 22. These measures have reduced stroke mortality, reduced average length of stay in hospital and enabled more stroke patients to be discharged directly to home. This is in their rehabilitative interest as patients, as well as being in the interest of the health service by ensuring better bed utilisation. In advance of the Estimates for 2018, the HSE will prepare costings for the roll-out of this programme and the Department is currently engaged with the HSE on the business case, as part of the development of the HSE's national service plan in advance of budget 2018. I will share more information on this with the Deputy as it becomes available. It will be hard not to agree on something that is beneficial and we are expanding it this year with additional teams. There is scope to do more and I hope we will have a full business case in advance of the 2018 Estimates.

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