Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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498. To ask the Minister for Health the changes planned for numbers of emergency departments across the State; if his Department uses specific criteria to plan emergency departments, such as distance from population, overall number across the State, number of senior clinicians; the way Ireland compares to other jurisdictions in these respects; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18589/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As Hospital Groups are implemented, of key importance will be the early demonstration of progress towards a more a co-ordinated approach to the planning and delivery of services, including emergency services, within and across the hospital groups, with an increased focus on networks of service provision with smaller hospitals managing routine urgent or planned care locally and more complex care managed in the larger hospitals. Each Hospital Group must develop and produce a strategic plan which will describe how they will provide more efficient and effective patient services; how they will reorganise these services to provide optimal care possible to the populations they serve.

A Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) has been established to provide objective advice and expertise to the Minister, Department, the HSE, hospital groups on the implementation of hospital groups and to provide national strategic direction in relation to a number of key national and supra regional services to ensure a coherent approach to the reorganisation of hospital services nationally. The future organisation of emergency services will also be guided by the recommendations of the Emergency Medicine clinical programme to ensure the optimal provision of high quality emergency care in all regions of the country.

Any change to Emergency Department services will be undertaken in a planned and orderly manner and will take account of existing patient flows, demands in other hospitals and the need to develop particular services in the context of overall service reorganisation in the Hospital Groups.