Significant improvement at A&Es, says HSE

The head of the HSE said there had been significant improvements in the overcrowding situation in hospital emergency departments.

Director general Tony O’Brien, during a visit to HSE facilities in Limerick, said overall numbers on trolleys each morning were lower by 34%.

While there was an increase over the first few weeks of January, this, he said, was not untypical.

Mr O’Brien said a peak in Limerick University Hospital on Jan 9 had not been repeated.

He said much of the solution lies in how the acute care needs of the population are managed outside of the hospitals.

Mr O’Brien said the HSE did not disagree with trolley watch figures produced by the INMO, but the nurses union, he said, now also had an additional count called “ward watch”.

“So it is important when we compare things with each other, we are comparing the same things. What hospitals do do is follow a thing called the full capacity protocol, which means they do utilise additional capacity in other parts of the hospital. In terms of the issue which is most prescient, which is an overcrowding issue in emergency departments, there is no disagreement about figures… The figures that I referenced are in fact INMO figures. So since 2011, using trolley watch, nationally we have a 34% decrease.”

He said the intention was to get to a point where there were no patients on a trolley and where patient experience was counted in terms of the overall time a patient stays in hospital.

“That journey was begun in 2011. It has made very substantial progress, we all agree about that, but nobody is complacent; nobody thinks we have got to the end point. The critical issue is that it cannot be solved within the envelope box that is why I am here in Limerick today looking at services outside of hospitals. The healthcare system and the healthcare needs of our population cannot be met by hospitals alone.”