Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McConalogue for raising this important matter. First, I am delighted that as part of the budget 2018 announcements, €40 million in additional finding was provided for winter pressures in 2017 and a further €90 million for measures to improve access to scheduled and unscheduled care in 2018. As such, we are planning for these particular issues. This is a signal of the commitment of the Government to invest in hospital services, provide additional supports during the winter period, increase hospital capacity and reduce waiting times for hospital procedures.

The additional funding for winter preparedness will be allocated to a range of measures. I confirm that €5 million of the funding for 2017 will be focused on supporting patients to return home, or to an appropriate community setting where clinically appropriate, by providing 45 additional home-care packages and 20 additional transitional care beds per week over the winter period. These measures have already been rolled out to targeted hospitals nationally, thus helping to alleviate some of the pressures hospitals are experiencing at present. Funding will also be provided to increase bed capacity this winter and, moving forward, as part of service planning for 2018. The Department of Health is also undertaking a health service capacity review in line with the programme for a partnership Government commitment. The review's findings, which are due to be published before the end of the year, will provide an evidence base regarding future capacity. In addition, I confirm to the Deputy that all hospital groups and community health organisations have developed and put in place integrated winter preparedness plans for their localities with a focus on planning for periods of escalation, maintaining patient-flow processes and ensuring public health preparedness.

I will turn to the question raised regarding Letterkenny University Hospital. I am aware that a proposal for additional beds in Letterkenny has been submitted to the HSE by the Saolta hospital group. This proposal will be assessed by the HSE in line with current financial and procurement processes and a decision will be made thereafter. In general, there is no doubt that too many patients continue to wait on trolleys for admission to hospital on a daily basis within our health service. I acknowledge the distress that long wait-times in emergency departments cause for patients and their families, including in Letterkenny. The public hospital system is seeing a growing demand for care and Letterkenny follows this trend. This year, accident and emergency attendances at Letterkenny had increased by more than 1% by the end of September, including an almost 5% increase in emergency department attendances by people over 75 years. Notwithstanding the pressure on Letterkenny emergency department, it is worth noting that patient experience times in Letterkenny are above the national average, meaning that patients complete their episode of care more quickly in Letterkenny emergency department. I compliment and thank the staff for that.

I conclude by noting the commitment of this Government to develop and improve services at Letterkenny University Hospital as evidenced by the significant level of investment in capital projects in recent years. These developments include multiple remedial works following flooding in 2013, a new state-of-the-art blood science laboratory in 2015 and a new medical academy and a clinical skills laboratory, both of which were opened last year.

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