Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The provision of timely high-quality healthcare in Kerry University Hospital and across the health system is a priority for the Minister and this Government. The Unscheduled Emergency Care Plan (UEC) 2025-2026 set out a series of targeted actions within the 4 Pillars of:

• Hospital Avoidance Support patients / service users to access care close to home and at the lowest level of complexity
• ED Operations Ensure our most vulnerable patients receive safe, timely and high-quality care in our EDs.
• In Hospital Care Delivery Improve and standardise processes to reduce variation in care and length of stay, improve flow across our hospitals and support safe and timely discharge
• Discharge Management Facilitate safe and timely discharge and early supported discharge home or to community care as soon as it is safe to do so.

Targeted actions within these pillars focused on processes, resource integration and management, and governance to improve patient experience from a holistic perspective improving systems along every step of the patient’s healthcare journey.

These include but are not limited to:

• Make the most of admission avoidance services such as Rapid Access Clinics for Chronic Disease and Older Persons and mobile diagnostics
• Screen patients ≥ 75 years for delirium and frailty at the point of triage and provide early access to emergency and specialist gerontology care
• Implement processes and protocols to assign patients to specialty or dedicated wards with multidisciplinary care to support differentiated care requirements
• Adopt a ‘home first’ policy so that integrated discharge planning starts early and is defined by a person’s needs, will and preferences

There has been a significant increase in investment in University Hospital Kerry since 2020. The budget for UHK has increased from €112 million in 2020 to almost €185 million in 2025, an increase of 67% over this period.

The Department has also invested in staffing at the hospital. Staffing has increased by 31% (376) since the end of December 2020 (1,215) to end of October 2025 (1,591).

University Hospital Kerry has 283 inpatient beds (Adult and Paediatric), including 19 critical care beds. Since 2020, 34 additional beds were delivered in UHK. The Acute Inpatient Bed Capacity Expansion Plan 2024 – 2031 aims to deliver an additional 4,367 acute inpatient beds nationally including an additional 108 beds for UHK. This will bring additional capacity at UHK to 142.

In 2023, a National Injury Unit Review was undertaken by a HSE Working Group who examined existing Injury Units and made a series of recommendations to improve services, including:

• to expand geographical coverage and prioritise locations for the provisions of Injury units;
• to expand all existing acute hospital governed Injury Units to operate from 8am to 8pm.

The objective of the Injury Unit expansion programme is to provide more equitable access to Injury Units, to avoid longer waiting times in Emergency Departments, and reduce unnecessary Emergency Department attendances for lower acuity patients. Expansion of Injury Units will be underpinned by a safe model of care as recommended by the Emergency Medicine Programme. The criteria for this prioritisation include population, existing Injury Unit locations, and gaps in geographical coverage.

The Programme for Government commitments on Urgent and Emergency Care include expansion of Injury Units, and this is being progressed across priority sites. The HSE undertook a study to inform regional and national decisions on the establishment of new Injury Unit services across Ireland by assessing the geospatial and population implications of site options under consideration. Locations for six additional Injury Units have been agreed, including Injury Units in Athlone, Tallaght, Carlow, Killarney, Ballina and Letterkenny.