INMO: Health service is ‘under unbearable pressures’
Speakers will include representatives from the Mid-Staffordshire National Health Service Foundation Trust who will discuss how things went terribly wrong when budgets took priority over patients.
INMO general secretary Liam Doran said the experience of Mid-Staffordshire must be heard by the Minister for Health, his Government and senior management at the Health Service Executive (HSE).
A report by an independent inquiry into the Mid-Staffordshire Trust in 2010 found that the trust lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safe care. It found that patients were routinely neglected by a trust that was preoccupied with cost cutting, targets and processes.
“Regardless of the financial pressures, everyone must heed the findings of the inquiry in England and we must all ensure that patient care is never demoted to second place,” said Mr Doran.
The chairman of the inquiry into the Mid-Staffordshire Trust said people must always come before numbers. “Statistics, benchmarks and action plans are tools, not ends in themselves. They should not come before patients and their experiences. This is what must be remembered by all those who design and implement policy for the NHS.”
Mr Doran said there was an ever-increasing demand for healthcare in Ireland at a time when the health service has lost nearly 3,000 nurses and midwives and 2,317 beds have been closed.
“The stark reality, to patients and those working in the frontline, is that our health service is now under unbearable pressure, standards of care are inevitably dropping and patient outcomes are being compromised arising from a shortage of staff, increased patient dependency and delays in accessing treatment.”
