Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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189. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to increase the number of critical care beds to 579, as recommended in a 2009 report; and the full-year cost of doing so. [42026/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In 2008, the HSE commissioned Prospectus to undertake an independent review of the existing adult critical care provision and to conduct an assessment of the future requirements to the year 2020. The report recommended that the number of critical care beds in the system should increase from 289 to 579 over the period 2010 to 2020. A HSE the National Clinical Programme for Critical Care was subsequently established and, in 2014, the Programme launched a centralised, ‘hub-and-spoke’ Model of Care for Adult Critical Care, which was informed by the recommendations of the Prospectus report.

The Annual National Clinical Programme for Critical Care Capacity Census records adult critical care capacity i.e. the commissioned and actual critical care bed stock and critical care staff provided in critical care services in hospitals, and available to care for critically ill adult patient. There is now a more co-ordinated approach to the planning and delivery of critical care, within and across hospital groups, with a focus on small hospitals managing routine urgent or planned care locally and more complex critical care managed in the larger hub hospitals where the relevant clinical critical care expertise can be provided.

In relation to the particular query regarding the implementation of the report recommendations and the cost of same, as this is a service matter, I have asked the HSE to respond to you directly. If you have not received a reply from the HSE within 15 working days please contact my Private Office and my officials will follow the matter up.