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

I welcome the opportunity to address the House on the matters raised by Senators Kieran O'Donnell and Maria Byrne, although she was not able to be here.

The Minister for Health wishes to acknowledge the distress overcrowded EDs cause to patients, their families, and front-line staff working in very challenging conditions in hospitals throughout the country. The number of patients attending EDs continues to increase year on year. For the first 11 months of 2019, the number of patients attending hospital EDs increased by 2.5%, and the number of admissions increased by 0.7% when compared with the same period last year.

According to HSE TrolleyGAR data, there was a 14.5% increase in the number of patients waiting on trolleys in UHL emergency department this year up to the end of November 2019 when compared to the same period last year. It is acknowledged that this is exceptionally high and the HSE is actively working with the University of Limerick Hospitals Group to ease congestion in the hospital, with a focus on facilitating transfers to level 2 hospitals, assistance from rehabilitation units and community health organisation services, as well as prioritisation of diagnostics to aid inpatient discharges.

The HSE winter plan was launched on Thursday, 14 November, in preparation for the anticipated increase in demand over the winter period. The Government allocated an additional €26 million to fund the implementation of the winter plan. Each winter action team has set out a range of initiatives it will undertake within its area to implement the plan. The integrated winter plan for University Hospital Limerick will be delivered by winter action team, WAT, 3. The initiatives for WAT 3 include additional home support hours to facilitate early hospital to community transfers; additional aids and appliances to facilitate early hospital discharges and ED avoidance; mobile doctor service units to manage increase demand for home visits and facilitate ED avoidance; a low-level domiciliary rehab team in Limerick city to facilitate early discharge and ED avoidance; added triage nursing support in Shannondoc to support ED avoidance; an added registrar in UHL to assist in addressing workflow and improve patient experience times; and added healthcare assistants support in the hospital to provide staffing at ward level to support additional surge patients.

The NNTPF has agreed at my request to support the marginal costs of funding additional beds for three months to the end of March 2020. This initiative will support the commitment by the HSE and my Department to alleviate winter pressures in our hospital system. Hospitals have been invited to make submissions to the fund to utilise this funding. To date, the NTPF has approved in principle and subject to appropriate governance and oversight 172 additional beds. These beds will be funded from the fund's budget at a cost of approximately €4.6 million. This includes an additional 15 beds in St. John's Hospital and ten additional nursing home beds to facilitate egress and alleviate overcrowding in UHL emergency department.

The NTPF is currently assessing further proposals that are still being received. In this regard, given the challenges facing the EDs with the exceptionally high use of trolleys for patients, I urge all hospital groups and individual hospitals that have not done so to engage with the NTPF to identify proposals to provide additional bed capacity for the winter period. Furthermore, a capital budget of €19.5 million has been approved for the provision of a modular 60-bed inpatient ward block at UHL, with funding of €10 million allocated in 2019. The HSE has advised that the enabling works are complete, the main contractor has commenced work and it is anticipated that the construction will be completed in mid 2020.This important project will go some way towards addressing the acknowledged lack of bed capacity in the region.