A&E safety risks ‘will be dealt with by health group’

ANY safety risks identified in the inspection of hospital accident and emergency units ordered by the health watchdog will be dealt with as a matter of urgency, said Health Service Executive head yesterday.

“Certainly, where there is overcrowding, the question of risk arises,” said HSE chief executive Kevin Kelly when he attended the opening of a €96 million development at the newly named Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin, yesterday.

Mr Kelly said the HSE, which received the Health and Safety Authority’s inspection request yesterday, would be working with the hospitals to ensure that any risks identified in the audits would be dealt with as a matter of urgency.

“I appreciate very much the pressures A&Es are under. Conditions in which patients are having to wait on trolleys is unacceptable. It has to be our main priority to deal with this over the coming months,” he said.

In a letter to Mr Kelly, the HSA requested that hospitals carry out the risk assessment and report back to the authority by February 25 next. The move follows a claim made this week by the Irish Hospital Consultants’ Association that overcrowding in A&E units is posing a “serious risk” to patients.

IHCA assistant general secretary Donal Duffy said they welcomed the involvement of the HSA and urged all the consultants involved to complete their risk assessments by the due date.

General secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation, Liam Doran, who also welcomed the risk assessment, said A&E nurses had been under pressure for years.

Mr Kelly said the development at Connolly Hospital, which includes a new A&E unit, operating theatres, surgery facilities and an intensive care unit, represented all that was good in the health service.

Meanwhile, a study of acute bed use indicates that if step-down facilities were available, far more people could be treated without any additional beds.

Connolly Hospital respiratory consultant Dr Conor Burke said an audit of in-patient bed use found 30% of patients remained in the hospital awaiting step-down facilities after they were medically discharged. It found that a total of 486 bed days were occupied by overstaying patients. “If the step-down facilities were available on the day of discharge this would have allowed the treatment of 54% more patients without any increase in bed complement,” he said. “This would have prevented patients from remaining on trolleys overnight and also prevented the cancellation of admissions for medical and surgical procedures and, therefore, the build-up of waiting lists,” said Dr Burke.

The audit of 1,400 hospital bed days was carried out during the first three months of last year. Two dates were put on patients’ charts - the date they were medically fit to leave an acute facility provided there were step-down facilities available and date on which they left the acute beds.

All the patients involved the audit had come through casualty.