John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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191. To ask the Minister for Health the number of critical care and ICU nurses employed across the health system prior to Covid-19; the number of new nurses trained with the specific skills required for critical care and ICU have been employed since Covid-19; the number in training; and the plans there are in place to train more. [32192/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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192. To ask the Minister for Health the number of permanent ICU beds there were across the health system prior to Covid-19; the number of permanent beds there are now; and the plans there are in place to provide additional ICU beds. [32193/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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At the start of the year, permanent adult critical care capacity in Ireland stood at 255 beds, according to the National Office of Clinical Audit. This included 204 Level 3 ICU beds and 51 Level 2 HDU beds.  As part of the initial response to the pandemic, funding was provided for an additional 40 adult critical care beds in March 2020 as well as two paediatric beds. The HSE has advised that between 280 and 285 critical care beds are currently open, with the number open any given day subject to fluctuation in respect of available staff and other operational considerations. 

Budget 2021 will allocate funding totalling €52m in 2021 to critical care. This will retain, on a permanent basis, the 42 critical care beds put in place on a temporary basis this year and add significant new capacity. Funded adult critical care beds will increase to 321 by end 2021, an increase of 66 over the baseline number of 255 funded beds in 2020. Funding for 2021 will also include money to allow for the development of a workforce plan as well as education initiatives to grow the critical care workforce. 

John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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193. To ask the Minister for Health the breakdown of ICU staff and beds cross the public and private health hospital system [32194/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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At the start of the year, permanent adult critical care capacity in Ireland stood at 255 beds, according to the National Office of Clinical Audit. This included 204 Level 3 ICU beds and 51 Level 2 HDU beds.  As part of the initial response to the pandemic, funding was provided for an additional 40 adult critical care beds in March 2020 as well as two paediatric beds. The HSE has advised that between 280 and 285 critical care beds are currently open, with the number open any given day subject to fluctuation in respect of available staff and other operational considerations. 

Budget 2021 will allocate funding totalling €52m in 2021 to critical care. This will retain, on a permanent basis, the 42 critical care beds put in place on a temporary basis this year and add significant new capacity. Funded adult critical care beds will increase to 321 by end 2021, an increase of 66 over the baseline number of 255 funded beds in 2020. Funding for 2021 will also include money to allow for the development of a workforce plan as well as education initiatives to grow the critical care workforce. 

Regarding critical care capacity in private hospitals, in anticipation of the projected surge in Covid-19 cases and the expected impact on the health care system a major part of the response was to urgently ramp up capacity for acute hospital care facilities.  A critical element of the strategy was to put in place an arrangement with the private hospitals to use their facilities as part of the public system, to provide essential acute hospital services for the duration of the emergency. Following negotiations with the Private Hospitals Association an overarching agreement with the 18 private acute hospitals was agreed at the end of March. Under the agreement, the HSE secured 100% of the capacity of the private hospitals until the end of June.

The utilisation rate of critical care beds in private hospitals varied throughout the three month period in which the agreement was in place. The HSE has advised the Department that in the last week of April 53% of critical care beds in private hospitals were in use, while in the last week of June 48% of critical care beds were in use.

In terms of wider critical care capacity, as part of work undertaken earlier this year to determine the capacity of the private hospital system, it was estimated that there were 47 ICU beds and 54 High Dependency Unit beds within the private hospital system.