With weeks to run to peak flu season, hospitals are in the grip of a system-wide crisis as the nation’s emergency departments (ED) plunge deeper into chaos.

Emergency medicine consultant Fergal Hickey has described escalating trolley numbers as a failure in planning by the HSE and the Department of Health.

Talks aimed at ending the health support dispute will get underway at the Workplace Relations Commission tomorrow.

The INMO, the HSE and government officials spent eight hours at the negotiations, which ended shortly before 1am this morning.

Latest: The Health Minister has cancelled his St Patrick’s Day trip due to the trolley crisis.

Three hundred and fifty people will die needlessly in hospital emergency departments next year unless Health Minister Simon Harris definitively addresses the trolley count crisis in next week’s budget.

Nurses have been instructed to ignore a HSE directive that changes the way in which agency staff are booked in circumstances where adhering to it could compromise patient safety.

Latest: A spokesperson for the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine has said that the HSE "didn't seem to care much about the impact" of the wildcat strikes at emergency departments.

A number of doctors failed to present for work at emergency departments (EDs) yesterday in protest at a HSE directive intended to cap the pay of locums.

The head of the HSE’s acute hospitals division has apologised for the recent weeks of overcrowding.

There were 520 patients on trolleys awaiting a bed yesterday, with Cork University Hospital recording the highest number in the country at 54.

With 528 patients on trolleys for up to 20 hours awaiting hospital beds, emergency medicine consultants have repeated to HSE chiefs the overcrowding crisis will not be solved without extra doctors, nurses and beds.

Two in five patients who suffered severe head injuries in 2014 and 2015 were not treated at neurological centres, despite clear evidence of much better outcomes for patients when this is the case.

The Government has systematically failed to address underlying problems leading to the overcrowding crisis at emergency departments, says the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine (IAEM).

A €40m plan to deal with the anticipated surge in hospital activities over the winter has been described as a “drop in the ocean” by doctors at a time when operations are already being cancelled and daily trolley figures frequently exceed 400.

If two former health ministers like Varadkar and Martin can’t knock their heads together across the negotiating table and sort our health system in 2016 we have no right to call ourselves developed, democratic or free, writes Victoria White

A pilot scheme that will see medical card holders treated for minor ailments at a pharmacy instead of a GP office is to be rolled out in March.

LEO Varadkar is ashamed, and well he might be. On Thursday, following the publication of a report into the deaths of five babies at Portlaoise hospital, the health minister proclaimed himself ashamed of the treatment of patients there.

As trolley figures remain high, hospital consultants have questioned whether draft plans to tackle emergency department (ED) overcrowding are workable in what they call an absence of a commitment to adequate resources.

The Irish Association of Emergency Medicine has said more home care and community services are needed to reduce the pressure in hospital wards.

Serious safety concerns about hospitals being able to manage ebola infection risks have been raised by the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine.

Doctors working in emergency departments have warned of reduced opening hours and longer waiting times for patients amid fears of a 50% shortfall in junior doctor numbers next July.

There won’t be enough senior doctors to run the country’s emergency departments if the Government implements its plan to cut new consultants’ salaries by 30%, according to the Irish Committee for Emergency Medicine Training.

A major surge in the number of children forced to wait on emergency department trolleys for up to a day could be halted without increasing budget costs, it has been claimed.

The number of sick children being treated on trolleys is “at historically high and dangerous levels”, according to the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine.

Hospitals are paying agencies €100 an hour for locums to plug the gaps in emergency departments (EDs) when the shortfall could be substantially addressed by creating a new grade of staff doctor.

Health Minister Dr James Reilly said today that a survey highlighting a shortage of senior doctors in Emergency Departments is misunderstood.

The Irish Association of Emergency Medicine (IAEM) is calling on the Government to introduce a ban on looped-cord blinds.

PATIENTS could lose their lives unless steps are taken to ease the beds crisis which has left 569 people on trolleys, it was claimed last night.

HOSPITAL emergency departments are struggling to cope with serious staff shortages, resulting in some shifts being left uncovered and causing havoc to existing quality and safety standards.

PATIENT safety is compromised when too many patients are kept on trolleys in emergency departments according to a consultant in emergency medicine at the Midwest Regional Hospital in Limerick.

EMERGENCY doctors have backed calls for the Health Service Executive (HSE) to provide 24-hour social work cover, claiming they are being used as a catch-all for social problems that should be handled elsewhere.

One of Ireland's leading doctors is accusing the HSE of failing to cut accident and emergency waiting times.

THE care of some patients may be at risk because of a serious shortage of A&E consultants, the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine (IAEM) has warned.

MEMBERS of the Accident & Emergency task force were forbidden from raising the question of using more acute hospital beds to relieve overcrowding in casualty, it has been claimed.

Ireland’s healthcare system faces chaos after accident and emergency nurses said they would start strike action tomorrow.