CUH to perform all out-of-hours surgery

ALL out-of-hours emergency surgery in Cork city and county will be carried out at Cork University Hospital (CUH) as part of a plan to reconfigure healthcare services in the south.

The Mercy University Hospital (MUH) and South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH) will continue to operate an acute surgical service by day, but all on-call out-of-hours work will be carried out at CUH.

In addition, two general hospitals in Bantry and Mallow will no longer offer acute surgical care and instead will cater only for acute medical patients.

Kerry General Hospital will retain acute services contrary to the central recommendation of the reconfiguration plan, outlined in a HSE-commissioned report launched yesterday.

Kerry General will also retain its emergency department, but the future of a number of others hangs in the balance. A sub-group of the reconfiguration process is weighing up the future of the remaining emergency departments with a decision due in September.

Yesterday, Prof John Higgins, director of the reconfiguration project in the HSE South, said the key recommendations of the report by consultants Horwarth and Teamwork were for:

na single integrated healthcare system in Cork and Kerry, with the patient at the centre.

nthe centralisation of complex care to Cork University Hospital

n better use of resources to allow delivery of care as close as possible to the patient’s home

na new governance structure linking the healthcare system to the educational system

Prof Higgins said there was a lot of support from the project among clinicians.

“I have a growing support team who work with me and a key element of what we’re doing is that we have brought together a forum that includes the new clinical directors appointed under the new consultant’s contract, our hospital managers, representatives from general practice, the head of our dental hospital, the Dean of Medicine in UCC and the consultant who leads the laboratory service; all the decision makers therefore for healthcare in Cork and Kerry are now meeting fortnightly so that we can address the issues in an organised, integrated way,” Prof Higgins said.

Prof Higgins said he had met with stakeholders every day since being appointed project director in March as part of a consultation process. Planning for how to implement the project gets under way now.

Prof Higgins expects implementation to take at least five years. He said their priority in the coming year was to develop a single GP referral system, that thousands of hours are wasted trying to refer a patient.

They will also prioritise the development of a single clinical department structure so that “instead of playing for Cork Con or Garryowen, everyone will be playing for Munster”, Prof Higgins said.

In addition, they intend to draw up plans for a health technology and research institute. Prof Higgins admitted there was no additional money for the reconfiguration project, that it would depend largely on eliminating waste in the system.

He also said additional arrangements would be made for patients living in remote parts of Cork by way of boosting paramedic and air ambulance services.

Prof Higgins denied the Mercy Hospital was not in favour of reconfiguration.

He said it had rejected the report, but its clinicians were “leading the charge” in some of the subgroups set up as part of the reconfiguration process.