Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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451. To ask the Minister for Health the amount by which staffing will increase in the accident and emergency department of Beaumont Hospital, Dublin 9 following the recent negotiations between accident and emergency nurses and management regarding under-staffing in the department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4725/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Labour Court issued a recommendation on the 13th January 2015 in respect of issues of over-crowding within the Accident and Emergency Department of Beaumont Hospital. In this context management at Beaumont Hospital will increase the number of nurses on day duty to 12 and the number of nurses on night duty to 11. As part of this additional compliment the Hospital will put in place a CNM2 covering a combination of operational and practice development initiatives. Management have confirmed that they will continue with their efforts to recruit nurses using all means available to them.

The HSE has the capacity to recruit where it is necessary to deliver front-line services. This is reflected in the current recruitment campaign where the HSE is actively recruiting to fill 1,600 approved nursing posts. These are across all grades and all divisions of the register spanning acute hospitals, community, ID and mental health. Many of these posts are currently being filled on a temporary or an acting basis. Following a high profile online campaign at the end of 2014 the HSE is currently processing 3,700 applications.