Head of hospital group: ‘We’ll win battle to cut trolley numbers’
The head of the University of Limerick Hospitals Group claimed yesterday they were winning the battle to significantly cut trolley numbers at under-fire emergency departments (EDs).
Prof Colette Cowan said the group was achieving a target of not having more than 20 trolley patients at any one time.
Prof Cowan heads the six hospitals group which employs 3,5000 staff and cares for 500 in-patient and 2,500 outpatients each day.
The ED at University Hospital Limerick, Dooradoyle, had attracted huge criticism as the trolley crisis persisted.
During the winter months, there had been more than 30 patients on trolleys daily, on a regular basis.
Prof Cowan told the Irish Examiner yesterday: “Our ED is really the yardstick by which we are measured by the public and the one area which we have issues with patients trying to get access to the hospital.
“Last November, when I arrived, I put a cap on the number of patients waiting on trolleys of 20. This is a starting point and our aim is to get that number down further.
“Day by day, we try to manage patients in a very small area and try and get them into beds as quickly as possible.
“Some days it very challenging, other days it is not. Over the last week, the numbers are way down with under 10 patients on trolleys waiting for beds. This is well in line with the cap. Thursday morning, we had five patients on trolleys.”
Prof Cowan, who qualified as a nurse before moving up the management ladder, said the hospital set about tackling the ED crisis by establishing an escalation plan, which focused on the issue of delayed discharges.
She said: “It is the only emergency department in the region and we looked at how we could move patients through to beds quicker, and secure access after hospital care into the community.
“This has led to patients being transferred out into the Fair Deal process much quicker. In comparison to other hospitals, we are the lowest for delayed discharges. At one point in January we had over 30 patients waiting for discharge. This number has now dropped to around seven or 10, with patients moving very quickly out into the community.
“We are also transferring up to 17 patients a day to our other hospitals in Nenagh, Ennis and St Johns. They are people who had treatment at UHL and can continue their treatment at the other three [hospital] sites.”
Prof Cowan said the current recruitment of more nurses will further help in the care and management of patients.
She said: “We have 1,200 nursing staff in the group and 900 are at UHL. We have committed to recruiting 70 nurses for the group. The bulk of them will be at UHL and we have recruited 36 to date and about 26 of these will be here at UHL and the remainder at Nenagh and Ennis. The interviews are ongoing.”
Prof Cowan said tenders for the fitting out of the new ED are currently being processed and it is intended a new ED will be opened towards the end of next year.
“The shell of the new ED is there in the new critical care block but it has to be fitted out,” she said.”
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