Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We expect 14 additional nursing staff to start in the emergency department in the next two months. We will work together to ensure that it is progressed as quickly as possible. The health service capacity review 2018 was clear on the need for a major investment in additional capacity in both acute hospitals and the community, combined with a wide-scale reform of the manner and the location of where health services are provided. Approximately 800 beds have been provided on a permanent basis over the number available at the end of 2019.

As I outlined, ongoing and planned developments at Sligo University Hospital will provide additional facilities for staff and patients, including additional beds, and space for waiting, triage and minor injury patients when the modular emergency department extension becomes operational in the coming weeks. Additionally, the internal reconfiguration works within the existing emergency department will also take place in the coming weeks to provide improved patient space within the department. These additional facilities cannot come quick enough. They will improve the experience for patients visiting the emergency department and, hopefully, the staff who work there.

Action plans are in place to deal with the current overcrowding, involving senior management, to ensure the focus remains on optimising the efficient and effective delivery of necessary treatment to all patients in a timely manner. Already, these actions are seeing an improving situation in the hospital. Staffing and recruitment plans are under way and we must work together to address these deficits. Local recruitment is also under way with additional nursing staff due to start in the emergency department in the coming months.

I remain active on this issue, because I am aware of it within the Department, and will work with colleagues in the Department and the HSE, and with management and staff in the hospital, to support the provision of high-quality, innovative and safe care to patients served by Sligo University Hospital and the wider Saolta University Health Care Group.

I will inform the Minister of the Deputy's views on agency staffing. This has been a very serious situation and I thank him for how he has articulated it today. I hope, working together will all the stakeholders, that we can to get through this. It is very difficult for the management, staff and patients in the hospital. I will do everything I can, as Minister of State and as a person for whom Sligo is my local hospital, to work with the stakeholders to address this issue.

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