Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I recognise the serious and ongoing concerns about University Hospital Limerick, and the huge impact that these are having on staff, patients, families, and communities within the Midwest.

The delivery of high quality, safe services is a priority within the Irish healthcare system. An integral part of this is the appropriate and timely reporting of adverse events when they do occur. It is vital that our health services take steps to ensure adverse events are appropriately reviewed and responded to so that care and experiences for patients and their families can continuously improve. The HSE has systems and procedures in place to respond when an adverse incident occurs. The HSE’s Incident Management Framework is applied to the management of such incidents and is the mechanism for incident investigations in the HSE. The focus of the Framework is on understanding how and why an incident occurred and using this knowledge to improve safety.

As the Deputy will be aware, I have had intensive engagement with the HSE concerning this hospital, and have provided significant and sustained investment in the region. There has been a 43% in the workforce at UHL since 2019, and 108 new beds have opened at the hospital since 2020. The budget allocation has increased by 44% since 2019 to €383 million in 2023.

Further to this on April 4th 2024, I have announced an extended series of measures agreed with the HSE to address ongoing issues at the hospital.

Measures to increase bed capacity include:

• A procurement process has been initiated for the operation of the new 50-bed Community Nursing Unit in Nenagh as a step-down sub-acute and rehabilitation facility for UHL. This is on a temporary basis for one year, until the first new 96-bed block is opened at UHL in 2025.
• The first new 96-bed block – currently under construction – will comprise 71 new acute beds for UHL, and 25 beds to replace existing beds from nightingale wards that require replacement and refurbishment in line with regulatory requirements.
• A further 20 permanent step-down transition and rehabilitation beds are being procured in Clare.
• I have mandated that all steps are taken to accelerate the second 96-bed block to be built at UHL. All 96-beds of this block will be additional beds for the hospital; comprising 48 medical and 48 surgical beds.
• Funding is also being provided for 16 additional fast build beds to be commissioned onsite at UHL ahead of next winter’s surge.
• UHL is to be one of two national test sites for Acute Virtual Wards.

Measures to increase ED efficiency include:

• UHL is now providing GP and Advanced Nurse Practitioner on-the-door services for the ED, to enable ED staff to concentrate on treating urgent and emergency patients in a timelier manner.
• UHL has deployed a patient flow team in the ED 7 days per week.

Measures to increase regional capacity include:

• Extending the opening hours of Medical Assessment Units at Nenagh, Ennis and St John’s Hospitals to 24/7, on a phased basis. This follows funding of €5.2m allocated in 2023 to extend opening to 12 hours a day.

Staffing measures include:

• Safe staffing will be extended to all remaining wards in UHL, in accordance with the national rollout of this initiative. Safe staffing has been in place in the ED since September 2023, following the recruitment of 21.5 WTE additional staff nurses. Safe staffing is anticipated to be in place across all inpatient wards at UHL by the final quarter of this 2024. A further assessment for Safe Staffing was undertaken for the 2024 National Service Plan, in which UHL received over €480,000 in additional funding to implement the according staff increase, taking into account increased patient presentation numbers and increased patient acuity.

Furthermore, I have announced an expert support team to address pressures in the Midwest. This team has begun work immediately to deescalate the Emergency Department at the Hospital.