Fined hospitals defend records

HOSPITALS penalised for bad management and keeping patients in beds for too long have defended work practices and criticised the carrot and stick approach adopted by the Department of Health.

Some of the country’s leading hospitals including Tallaght, Mercy Hospital Cork, Maher and St James’ have been fined a total of €6.4m. The money will be reallocated to more efficient hospitals under a system designed to make hospitals more cost-effective.

While acknowledging the process was accepted by all hospitals, a Tallaght Hospital spokesperson said the model did not always take into consideration the different stages of development among the participating hospitals.

The Department of Health allocates 20% of hospital funding on the basis of the casemix model on which it rewards and penalises individual centres.

“The casemix model, by definition, is an attempt to match activity with costs,” said the Tallaght Hospital spokesperson.

However, she said costs could differ substantially between the opening years of a new hospital when they would be expected to be quite high in comparison to establishments which had reached their optimalcapacity. Tallaght Hospital, which was formed as a result of the merger of the Adelaide and Meath hospitals in conjunction with the National Children’s Hospital, only opened in 1998.

The hospital has admitted it was disappointed with the results of its operational year in 2001, on which the €1.5m penalties imposed by the department were based.

However, the spokesperson said the results were not unexpected in light of the planning cycle of the hospital.