Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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247. To ask the Minister for Health given the decision by members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation to initiate industrial action at St. Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin 4, the steps he is now taking to address the real crisis across the hospital network here, specifically through the recruitment of additional staff, including consultants, nurses and midwives; and the provision of additional bed capacity through the re-opening of closed beds, and the introduction of new bed numbers, both within existing build and through planned expansion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36808/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Significant additional resources are being provided to address the current difficulties in acute hospitals and in particular the emergency departments. Additional funding of €74 million was agreed by Government in April this year. This funding was used to increase the number of long term nursing home care places and reduce the waiting time for 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 Emergency Department Taskforce plan as follows:

- Delayed discharges are reducing steadily;

- The waiting time for Nursing Home Support Scheme funding has reduced from 11 weeks at the beginning of the year and is now between 2 to 4 weeks;

- Transitional care funding supported almost 2000 people who have been approved for Fair Deal to move from acute to non-acute care whilst awaiting their long-term care placement; and

- Over 1,200 additional home care packages will have been provided by the end of 2015.

Further additional funding of €18m was provided in July for a winter initiative which include the provision of 300 additional hospital beds, to be made available in November and December.

The number of consultants has grown significantly in recent years to 2,700. This includes an additional 320 in the last five years, notwithstanding the economic crisis. The number of nurses employed has increased by over 500 in the past 12 months and there are many initiatives currently underway to improve nursing staff levels throughout the country. These include the retention of 2015 degree programme graduates, offering full time permanent contracts, the conversion of agency usage to permanent staffing and an international recruitment campaign.

It is expected that the measures undertaken by the Emergency Department Taskforce will alleviate the challenges facing the Emergency Departments and the factors that led to the industrial action taken by INMO membership at St Vincent's Hospital. The Government is providing significant additional resources to enable the health services address the difficulties in emergency departments. It is important that management and senior clinicians at national and hospital level engage proactively, supporting staff, utilising the resources provided and implementing the measures necessary to address the current difficulties.