Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 33: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her views on whether her attempts to tackle the crisis in hospital accident and emergency departments has failed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26379/09]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Last year, hospital Emergency Departments treated 1.15 million people, of whom 368,000 were admitted to hospital. The average number of patients on trolleys awaiting admission at 2pm each day is half what it was in 2005.

We need to continue to reduce waiting times for all patients presenting as emergencies to our hospitals. With this in mind, the HSE has set a lower waiting time target of 6 hours for all patients in its 2009 Service Plan. The aim is that all patients, irrespective of whether they are admitted or not, will be assessed, treated and discharged or admitted within 6 hours of arrival.

The HSE is working to measure and report on the time taken to manage each patient's care from the point of arrival in the Emergency Department until they are discharged or admitted. As an interim measure, a sampling approach is being adopted at selected time periods each day, which involves collecting registration, admission and discharge data from Emergency Departments at all hospitals, either electronically or manually.

The HSE is currently undertaking a project to provide all EDs nationally with a revised IT system. Hospitals which are not currently in a position to record total waiting times over a 24 hour period are collecting data on a sampling basis between 11am and 1pm daily and 4pm and 6pm. The sampling is based on over 10,500 reported ED times from a variety of hospitals. As hospitals are given the data collection capability the sampling approach will cease.

The latest information from the HSE, collected as part of this project, indicates that between February and May 2009

?the percentage of patients discharged within 6 hours increased from 79% in February to 88%

? The percentage of admitted patients admitted within 6 hours increased from 40% to 56%

?The percentage of patients admitted within 24 hours increased from 81% to 88%.

?The percentage of non-admitted patients discharged within 6 hours increased from 89% to 94%.

From today (July 1), the HSE is initiating an "early transfer" pilot programme across 4 sites (Tallaght, Beaumont, Drogheda and Cork University Hospitals). Under the programme, patients can be transferred from the ED to a ward earlier than would normally be the case. The decision to transfer patients will be based on a prior analysis of the number of planned discharges each day.

This and other developments such as reducing inappropriate admissions, reducing average length of stay and shifting activity from in-patient to day case procedures will contribute to further improvements to Emergency Departments.