Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I am taking it on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, so I will keep to the script.

I recognise the long-standing interest of the Deputy in the development of healthcare at University Hospital Limerick and the entire mid-west. We are all familiar with the difficulties faced by UHL. It was in consideration of those difficulties that the Minister visited the hospital in February this year. Following that visit, he requested a HSE expert team to review the day-to-day functioning of the emergency department in UHL. The HSE's performance management and improvement unit, PMIU, led an intensive engagement with the hospital group and mid-west community healthcare organisation, CHO, throughout the summer in response to the Minister's concerns and the findings of the HIQA report published in June this year. The PMIU worked with UHL to support and oversee the implementation of rapid improvements in services in the region. These measures include a renewed focus on hospital avoidance, patient flow and discharge planning, and regular and frequent assessment of patients with long stays in hospital.

In addition to the review requested by the Minister, UHL commissioned Deloitte to review and advise on unscheduled care and patient flow in the hospital. This review was published in September. Its key recommendations include the opening and staffing of the acute medical assessment unit on a 24-7 basis and the recruitment of an additional 20 non-consultant hospital doctors, four emergency medicine consultants and dedicated paediatric nursing staff. They also include a review of health and social care professional staffing levels, an additional 202 acute beds and 63 day beds by 2036, and improved access to primary care through additional places for GP training schemes and expansion of GP access to diagnostics.

In addition to this work, the Minister launched the 2022 waiting list action plan, as the first year of a multi-annual approach to reducing waiting lists and waiting times. The €350 million funding allocated to the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, this year has been primarily focused on providing additional public and private activity to reduce waiting lists, but also to lay the foundations of important multi-annual reforms that will deliver sustained reductions in waiting lists. This work will continue in 2023, with €443 million allocated to tackle waiting lists, including €123 million in funding for delivery of the HSE waiting list action plan, €150 million for the NTPF to procure additional capacity, and €90 million for additional short-term measures to address acute scheduled care waiting list backlogs.

There has been significant investment in infrastructure in UHL in recent times. Work has commenced on a new four-storey, 96 single bed acute inpatient ward block. In 2021, a new 60-bed modular ward block opened. This follows the completion of two separate rapid-build projects constructed in response to the Covid-19 emergency, which provided an additional 38 inpatient beds on site at UHL.

I would like to assure the Deputies that the work underway to address capacity issues at UHL will make a significant difference to patient experience at UHL. The Department of Health continues to work closely with the HSE to ensure UHL is fully supported and that the necessary improvements are actioned in a timely manner.

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