Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1087. To ask the Minister for Health the amount it would cost to reinstate all the downgraded and closed accident and emergency departments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36398/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The establishment of Irish acute hospitals into a small number of Hospital Groups aims to provide an optimum configuration for hospital services to deliver high-quality, safe patient care in a cost effective manner, and to allow integration and improve patient flow across the continuum of care.

Hospital Groups are making significant progress in working together to progress from being disparate individual hospitals to integrated groups with a more coordinated approach to the planning and delivery of services across all the hospitals in the group. This allows for a stronger role for smaller hospitals in delivering less complex care, while ensuring that patients who require true emergency or complex planned care are managed safely in larger hospitals.

Currently there are 26 adult acute hospitals which have a 24/7 ED, and within the context set out above, no exercise has taken place to examine the cost of opening further services.