Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 285: To ask the Minister for Health the number of inpatients to each accident and emergency department in November 2010; the average wait in each accident and emergency in November 2010; the number of inpatients to each accident and emergency department in November 2011; the average wait in each accident and emergency in November 2011 in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40246/11]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Immediately following my appointment as Minister for Health, I set about establishing the Special Delivery Unit, the purpose of which is to unblock access to acute services by improving the flow of patients through the system. As a priority the SDU is addressing the issue of unacceptably long trolley waits.

The SDU is putting in place an infrastructure based on information collection and analysis, hospital by hospital, so that we will know what is actually happening in real time. This will allow for performance management to be embedded in the system to sustain shorter waiting times.

The problems in our emergency departments are complex and they did not arise overnight and they will take time to resolve but they are being tackled in a systematic and relentless fashion through the SDU. I do not minimise the scale of the task before us but I am very confident that the SDU will facilitate real performance improvement in the Irish hospital system.

The particular issues vary from hospital to hospital and some of the solutions will depend on local factors. As part of the process of forming the overall picture of the emergency department situation nationally, the SDU has identified fifteen hospitals which between them account for 80% of the trolley wait problem in the hospital system and Liaison Officers from the SDU are working pro-actively to support these sites. As part of this process some once off funding to the end of the year is being made available to hospitals based on specific proposals to reduce waiting times and to help address issues such as delayed discharges. Adherence to the agreed criteria will be closely monitored by the SDU.

The conditions and performance measures which hospitals will have to meet are as follows; for the remainder of the year and throughout January 2012 no patient will wait more than 23 hours in the hospital's Emergency Department. In addition the trolley wait target must be maintained at least 70% below the maximum daily trolley count since January 2010. Other conditions/performance measures include: seven day ward/discharge rounds; achievement of all Acute Medicine Programme milestones; and implementation of approved measures to effectively stream elderly patients.

My Department has asked the HSE for the detailed information sought by the Deputy and I will be in further communication with him in relation to it as soon as possible.