Drumm: needless use of hospitals

THE equivalent of a complete new hospital would be available to the health system if patients were only admitted when they needed to be, according to Prof Brendan Drumm.

The chief executive of the Health Service Executive said too many patients were being admitted to wards unnecessarily. A simple change of philosophy among hospital managers and doctors would free up a lot of space for patients from accident and emergency departments.

“You have to ask why do weekend discharge rates drop way down, when you should be allowed go home on Saturdays if you can. We need to move to a situation where people who need day surgery are not admitted unnecessarily, instead of having people admitted one, two or three days before surgery.