Acute intervention teams bid to reduce hospital admissions

ACUTE intervention teams are being established throughout the country in a bid to keep people out of hospital altogether.

Health Service Executive (HSE) chief executive Professor Brendan Drumm revealed yesterday that the first Community Intervention Team (CIT) is to be established this week in Cork.

The team of public health nurses, general nurses, home-help organisers and clerical officers will cover patients within a 10-mile radius in Cork city.

The Cork general practitioners will also have a number of rapid response beds available to them in a 24-hour nursing facility for patients who require more care than could be facilitated at home but do not require admission to an acute unit.

A total of four “learning location sites” have been chosen for the initial roll-out of the teams this year. The other sites are Dublin west, Dublin north and Limerick city, and teams will be established in those locations later this year.

Prof Drumm said CITs could be mobilised in a matter of hours by a GP to treat people in their own homes for conditions for which they would normally have to go into hospital.

During an interview on RTÉ, Prof Drumm pointed out that the team would be able to treat and care for elderly people who develop medical conditions like pneumonia or stroke.

In such a situation, their GP will telephone the acute intervention team and ask if they can put a nurse into the patient’s home for two to three days. It will also allow A&E doctors to decide not to admit a person because the medicine and care they need can be provided in his or her own home.

HSE Southern Area care group coordinator Aileen O’Neill said the CIT team in Cork was being introduced in two phases.

The team, based in the Kinsale Road Business Park, will begin by taking referrals from out-of-hours GPs and from Cork University Hospital’s A&E unit. After eight weeks, the team will be in a position to take day referrals from GPs during daytime.

Ms O’Neill said the four initial teams were working models that could be adapted in other areas.

Meanwhile, an out-of-hours GP service for north Dublin will be up and running by September.

It will be a cooperative service.

Prof Drumm said four or five centres would be provided across north Dublin.