Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 264: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the progress to date with regard to improving conditions in accident and emergency departments; her plans for the future; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19762/07]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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Improving the delivery of Accident and Emergency services continues to be the Government's top priority in health. The new Programme for Government contains a number of additional measures which will build on the progress made to date and which are designed to bring about further improvements in the quality and accessibility of A & E services. These are:

To increase the number of A & E consultants available around the clock in A & E departments;

To further develop chest pain and respiratory clinics; and

To establish a national network of Local Injury Clinics.

The over-riding objectives are to reduce the numbers waiting for admission, the time spent waiting for admission, and the turnaround time for those who can be treated in A & E and do not require admission.

The Health Service Executive's activity statistics continue to indicate significant reductions in the number of patients awaiting admission as compared with the previous year. Over the first eight months of 2007, the average number of patients awaiting admission each day was 95. This compares with an average of 173 patients over the first eight months of 2006. This represents an average reduction of 45%. There has also been a significant reduction in the number of hospitals reporting incidences of patients waiting unnecessarily long times for admission.

The majority of the hospitals which had been identified as experiencing difficulties in relation to the delivery of Emergency Department services have for some time been meeting initial performance targets set by the HSE. The HSE has indicated that it will introduce revised performance targets in October.

The report of the HSE's Emergency Department Task Force recommended that the issues in Emergency Departments be examined on a whole-hospital and whole-system basis. It identified the requirement for hospital-specific initiatives as well as the development of national responses in relation to key structural issues.

A key requirement is the development of strong internal management control processes at hospital and community levels to ensure that capacity is fully optimised and that measures designed to unlock capacity are supported by strong controls which enable an appropriate balancing between emergency and elective workloads.

My Department is assured by the HSE that a series of additional measures are being put in place to ensure the delivery of an improved service for patients and to reduce pressure on A & E departments. These include a number of hospital avoidance measures such as:

the expansion of the Hospital in the Home scheme to the Dublin Academic Teaching Hospitals;

the Rapid Access Clinic for the elderly at the Smithfield Centre in Dublin;

the development of Community Intervention Teams;

the roll-out of more primary care team;

the expansion of out-of-hours GP services; and

the expansion of community diagnostic services.

Measures being taken to improve and optimise acute hospital capacity and capability include the development of:

Seven new Community Nursing Units in Dublin;- Additional long-stay beds outside of Dublin;

Additional Admission Lounges;

Acute Medical Assessment Units at Navan and Naas;

Acute Medical Admission Units at Beaumont, Sligo and Tallaght; and

Enhanced diagnostic capability in hospitals.