Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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645. To ask the Minister for Health the measures he is taking to ensure that beds are not being taken up at weekends by persons who are physically fit to go home on a Friday but due to the lack of consultants on site over the weekend to sign them fit to leave are being kept in hospital beds until Monday morning; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11831/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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In September 2016, the HSE launched the ‘Winter Initiative Plan 2016-2017’ which provided €40 million of additional funding for winter preparedness and to assist hospitals to deal with increased demand.

A key element of the Winter Initiative is to support hospitals to improve process in relation to patient flow. This includes supporting hospitals through access to social care and community measures to discharge patients, when deemed clinically appropriate, to return home or to a more appropriate community setting. Since the start of the Winter Initiative delayed discharges have reduced nationally from 638 to 517, freeing up hospitals beds to alleviate ED pressures. In addition under the Initiative, since October: over 4,260 patients have availed of aids and appliances; over 1,050 additional homecare packages and 615 additional transitional care beds have been provided, enabling patients to be discharged from hospital sooner.

The Special Delivery Unit in the HSE works with individual hospitals to drive process improvements and support hospitals in ensuring that effective discharge procedures are put in place. Within this context hospitals are required to ensure that a predicted date of discharge is assigned to every patient and that regular ward rounds are conducted by senior clinical decision-makers, including at weekends as appropriate, to enable discharge of patients fit to go home. Also a number of hospitals have established discharge lounges to support early discharging. Further, the Winter Initiative supported the expansion of Community Intervention Teams, including where possible the provision of a 7 day service to enable discharge home over the weekends.

As part of this oversight role, the HSE works with hospitals to ensure that appropriate senior cover, at management and consultant level, is provided at all times including at weekends and during public holidays.