Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 224: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if her attention has been drawn to reports regarding the future of cardiology services at Ennis General Hospital, County Clare; if this service will continue at the hospital; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23006/10]

Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 225: To ask the Minister for Health and Children the position regarding cardiac services at Ennis General Hospital, County Clare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23008/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The HSE has made significant progress on reconfiguring acute hospital and related services in the Mid West region informed by the Teamwork/Horwath Report and the Health Information and Quality Authority Report on Ennis, which was published in April 2009. These Reports highlighted the need for changes to be made in the organisation and provision of acute hospital services across the Mid West region as they found services there to be too fragmented, to carry increased risks for patients and staff and to be unsustainable.

The reconfiguration of services in the Mid-West Region began in early April, 2009. This involved the cessation of 24-hour Accident and Emergency services at Ennis and Nenagh. These hospitals now provide an urgent care/minor injuries service for 12 hours a day as part of a regional Accident and Emergency structure.

A regional department of surgery has been established in the Mid-West. All complex acute surgery was centralised to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Limerick in October 2009. Ennis and Nenagh hospitals also now undertake an expanded range of day case surgery and diagnostic work.

I am satisfied that the measures being taken by the HSE are necessary and appropriate in order to ensure the provision of safe and effective health services to the people of the Mid West region.

As part of the reconfiguration of services in the Mid-West the HSE is currently considering the most appropriate model for the provision of acute medicine services in the region, including cardiac services. The HSE is consulting with key stakeholders across the acute hospital and primary and community care service sectors in relation to the development of this model, having regard to factors, such as patient safety. The HSE's National Director for Quality and Clinical Care and National Clinical Lead for Medicine are working on this process.