Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Swanick for raising this issue and giving me the opportunity to provide an update to the House.

I fully accept that there are critical care capacity deficits in hospitals across the country. I recognise the ongoing challenges this presents and also its impact on patient flow within emergency departments. Currently, the annual national adult critical care bed capacity census reports a capacity of 240 adult critical care beds as of 30 September 2017. The HSE national service plan for 2018 recognises that, following the organisation of hospitals into hospital groups, it is clear that critical care capacity building is required in the hub hospitals in order to meet the ongoing and increasing critical care requirements of complex, multi-specialty, severely critically ill patients.

I assure the Senator that the 2018 service plan identifies increase of critical care capacity as a priority for this year. In particular it identifies the opening of additional high-dependency and critical care capacity at Cork University Hospital and the Mater Hospital as specific priority actions. Hospital groups are also facilitating the implementation of the national critical care nursing workforce plan, Career Pathway, to recruit nursing graduates.

The Senator may also be aware that my Department is undertaking a health system capacity review, in line with the Programme for a Partnership Government commitment, which is examining health service capacity across all key areas of primary care, acute care and services for older people. This includes examining current and future demand, capacity for adult critical care and the need for additional adult critical care capacity up to 2031, taking into account demographic growth.