Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has asked me to reassure the House that there has been no reduction in the number of patient beds in Beaumont Hospital, a point the Senator made himself. While 140 beds spread across four surgical wards had historically been intended for surgical patients, in reality a significant number of these beds have been consistently occupied by medical patients, many of whom are frail and elderly. In line with national programmes for treating frail and elderly patients and for surgical procedures, a decision has been made to reorganise a number of wards at Beaumont Hospital to provide a more comfortable experience for all patients. One of these four wards has now been allocated for frail and elderly patients who require medical attention only while the remaining three have been ring-fenced for surgical patients. This reorganisation will provide a more comfortable setting for elderly patients while also providing greater certainty on bed availability for surgical procedures. It will also contribute to an improvement in waiting lists.

Delayed discharges at Beaumont are, of course, a factor in the availability of bed capacity and have no doubt led to a strain on resources. However, on foot of the ED task force, which the Minister convened in December last year, additional funding of €74 million was provided in 2015 to help ease these types of pressures in acute hospitals. The funding will increase the number of long-term nursing home care places and reduce waiting times for the funding of such places. It will also increase the number of transitional care beds and home care packages to provide viable supports for those no longer needing acute hospital care. Significant progress has been made to date on the overall plan and I am pleased to inform the House that delayed discharges are reducing steadily, with a 23% reduction since November 2014.

In addition to measures already taken, the HSE has also been working with social care and has developed a frail-elderly project team. The team is led by a community geriatrician with a focus on the provision of care in day hospitals and nursing homes rather than in hospital emergency departments. As the Senator said, Beaumont Hospital has one of the busiest emergency departments in Ireland, providing services to over 50,000 patients every year. Since January there has been an increase in the number of older patients requiring emergency admission. In addition to working closely with the community, the hospital has undertaken a number of initiatives internally within various teams and departments and externally with the HSE to improve the patient pathway both through the emergency department and the hospital. Beaumont Hospital's key priority is to utilise the capacity and resources available to provide the best possible treatment to all patients, both medical and surgical.

I will ensure that the transcript of this debate and the comments of Senator Darragh O'Brien are brought to the attention of the Minister, Deputy Varadkar.