Hospital reconfiguration report due

AN internal report outlining how the hospital system will be reconfigured — including the exact services to be moved from 10 small hospitals — is set to be given to Health Minister Dr James Reilly.

Formal correspondence between HSE chief executive Cathal Magee and the Department of Health’s secretary general, Michael Scanlan, has confirmed the details of the plan will be finalised before the end of the year.

Records obtained by www.irishhealth.com under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act show the reconfiguration document will outline which specific services will be changed in named facilities.

The report, which is expected to be given to Dr Reilly before the end of November, is focussed on three main areas, namely:

*Which services will be moved from smaller hospitals Navan, Dundalk, Portlaoise, Loughlinstown, Mallow, Bantry, Ennis, Nenagh, St John’s in Limerick and Roscommon to larger facilities.

*Which services will be moved from larger facilities to smaller hospitals as they are not as in-demand and can be safely run in lower patient-base facilities.

*How the budgets of larger hospitals will need to be reduced to reflect this planned change.

Among the services being examined are 24-hour emergency departments, critical care units and complex surgery. These are likely to be removed from some smaller hospitals and transferred to larger centres.

In a letter written on July 29 to Mr Magee, Mr Scanlan said the plan should give a hospital-by-hospital breakdown on which services will transfer from larger hospitals and on what dates.

“It is also to include an estimate of the additional funding that would be required in each case to provide these additional services,” he said.

The Department of Health official also said the report should show how the budgets at larger hospitals could be changed to reflect services which are moved to smaller facilities.

A number of the smaller hospitals involved — namely Roscommon, Ennis, Nenagh, Dundalk and St John’s Hospital in Limerick — have already lost services such as 24/7 emergency department coverage.

Mallow Hospital in north Cork is due to have its emergency department converted to an “urgent care centre” from November, a move which is also planned for Loughlinstown Hospital in south Dublin.

“The first priority in this regard is to ensure that there are no remaining safety issues [at smaller hospitals] that require immediate attention,” he said.

Mr Scanlan added that the HSE should also outline what other services may be “at risk” at all hospitals for budgetary or staff shortages issues, among others, over the next three years.