Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

68. To ask the Minister for Health if he will report on the changes that have taken place on the Emergency Department Task Force since a person (details supplied) very recently took over as chair; if he has set targets for this winter; if hospitals will be fined this winter if they do not meet these targets; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35548/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

ED overcrowding is a key priority issue for the Government. I convened the ED Taskforce in December 2014 to provide focus and momentum in dealing with the challenges this issue presents.

The Director General of the HSE is co-chairing the ED Taskforce Implementation Group until March 2016. He has taken this decision in order to ensure that all relevant parts of the health services, including acute, social and primary care, are optimising resources in order to deal with the particular challenges associated with the winter months. He is currently engaged in visiting a number of acute hospital sites which have been identified as having performance issues in relation to ED or other matters.

Based on the Task Force's Action Plan published in April, €25 million was provided in Budget 2015, and an additional €74m in April of this year to address the issue of delayed discharges in hospitals. This funding had been provided to increase the number of long term nursing home care places and reduce the waiting time for the funding of such places, as well as providing additional transitional care beds and home care packages to provide viable supports for those no longer needing acute hospital care. Significant progress has been made to date on the overall ED Taskforce plan including a steady reduction in delayed discharges from hospital (561 on 13 Oct 2015, down from 830 in Dec 2014). The waiting time for Nursing Home Subvention Scheme funding has reduced from 11 weeks at the beginning of the year to between 2 to 4 weeks.

In relation to bed capacity, further additional funding of €18m was provided in July for a winter initiative to include the provision of approximately 300 additional hospital beds. A further 116 hospital beds which have been closed for refurbishment or for infection control purposes during 2015 are also to be re-opened by the end of November.

All of these actions are intended to enable the HSE to improve the patient flow through the hospital system and achieve the target to reduce the number of patients on trolleys in EDs waiting for admission for over nine hours to fewer than 70.