Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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226. To ask the Minister for Health her plans to reduce cancellations of hospital procedures and overcrowding. [24162/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I fully acknowledge the distress and inconvenience for patients and their families when hospital appointments and procedures are postponed.

While every effort is made to avoid postponements, they can happen for a variety of reasons, including capacity issues due to increased scheduled and unscheduled care demand, and unforeseen circumstances that may impact a service.

To address capacity issues the regionally balanced Acute Inpatient Hospital Bed Expansion Plan (May 2024) sets out plans to deliver 4,367 acute hospital in-patient beds by 2031. The Plan is being progressed under the HSE Capital Plan 2025.

Patient safety remains at the centre of all hospital activity and elective care scheduling. To ensure services are provided in a safe, clinically aligned and prioritised way, hospitals follow HSE clinical guidelines and protocols.

Postponed hospital appointments and procedures are, where appropriate, rescheduled as early as possible with priority given to patients requiring time-sensitive and urgent treatment.

I would like to assure the deputy that every measure is being taken reduce overcrowding in our Emergency Departments.

We are making progress in reducing the number of patients on trolleys nationwide and intensive work is ongoing with the HSE in this regard. This reduction has been achieved despite a significant increase in the number of patients presenting to Emergency Departments, particularly in cohort of patients aged 75 years and older.

The improved performance seen in 2024 sustains the improvements achieved with the implementation of the 2023 UEC Operational plan. That plan has now been superseded by the UEC 2024-25 Plan, which was presented to Government in July last year.

Priority actions are set out under four operational pillars: Hospital avoidance, Emergency Department operations, In-hospital care delivery and Discharge management. The actions are focused on balancing system capacity and demand while optimising patient flow.

Amongst the initiatives involved in the plan are:

• Vaccine Preventable Illness: The HSE is promoting the uptake of Influenza, Measles and COVID-19 vaccinations to improve compliance for all target groups including Healthcare Workers Specialist Care in the Community
• Community Specialist Teams (CSTs) for Chronic Disease Management to deliver 19,000 patient contacts each month. CSTs for Older Persons will deliver 11,750 patient contacts each month.
• GP Out of Hours Work with GP Out of Hours Services to maintain/increase GP OOH contacts and reduce the level of GP OOH referrals to EDs
• NAS Care Pathways Maximize usage of existing NAS alternative care pathways
• Injury Units to provide a 7-day service, 8am to 8pm including Bank Holidays
• The operation of 10-bedded Virtual Wards in University Hospital Limerick (UHL) and in St Vincent's University Hospital (SVUH), scaling to 25 virtual beds for each site by year end to deliver 50 virtual beds in total.
• Providing additional and extended hours for senior decision makers and staff integral to supporting 7/7 operations.