Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last summer, the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, initiated our new approach to urgent and emergency care planning. This plan focused on improving primary measures, two of the most important being 8 a.m. trolley numbers and improving patient experience time for the over-75s as a priority patient cohort, and those most likely to require longer hospital stays. The last six months of 2023, compared to the same period in 2022, brought about a 22% reduction in the 8 a.m. trolley numbers and a 38% drop in the number of older patients waiting in emergency departments.

However, the Deputy is quite right. We have cases that we do not want to see. I think it varies from hospital to hospital but transitional care funding is really important. We allocated that over 10,000 times last year. We use it for hospital avoidance, and we use it for transfer to nursing homes if appropriate. I believe what the Deputy has said, in that with the teams now going into the nursing homes, it is hugely important.

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