Hospitals told: End discharge delay

Hospitals have been told the number of delayed discharges — patients whose acute part of their care has ended — must be reduced on a continuous basis so that the figure does not exceed 500.

The emergency department taskforce report, published yesterday, is critical of the current situation where the number of delayed discharges is “routinely” in excess of 730.

Leo Varadkar, the helath minister, said work on the scheme to tackle the problem had already begun, but it would take “eight weeks” to fully implement.

The Government has allocated an additional €74m to address the issue of delayed discharges and overcrowding in hospital emergency departments.

Based on the taskforce’s action plan, €44m is going towards 1,600 nursing home beds, while €30m will cover the cost of additional transitional care beds that can be contracted by hospitals.

The plan points out that most hospitals have more than 15% of beds “blocked” on an ongoing basis and in some it was as high as 25%.

Kathleen Lynch, the minister for primary care, social care, and mental health said the €44m would be spent on the nursing home support scheme, Fair Deal.

“Once you are deemed to need long-term care, the funding will be available to you within a four-week period,” said Ms Lynch, adding that older people had been waiting 18 weeks for funding under the scheme and that was “unacceptable”.

Ms Lynch said 200 letters would be despatched this week telling people they had been approved for funding and the remainder would follow very shortly.

Mr Varadkar said there were currently about 750 delayed discharges and the number was down from 850 in December.

While the implementation of the taskforce report would be led by the HSE, Mr Varadkar said he intended having a smaller oversight group in which he would be personally involved.

That group would monitor the actions taken every four to six weeks.

“We have had emergency department task forces before and, while successful initially, progress was lost over time because of a loss of focus and, in some cases, a loss of political interest,” the minister said.

He said the €74m being provided was “new money” — it was additional funding over what was allocated already to the Department of Health and the HSE.

While there was no supplementary budget agreed that would be worked out towards the end of the year, he added.

Age Action spokesman Eamon Timmins welcomed the funding to help older people trapped in hospitals get a nursing home bed, but he was disappointed at the lack of additional funding for those wanting to go home.

“HSE figures compiled in February showed 17% of people in delayed discharge beds at the time were due to be discharged home but were awaiting approval of a range of supports, such as home care packages and home adaptations,” said Mr Timmins.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association said the proposed actions in the task force report did not go far enough to deal properly with the unacceptable treatment delays for patients.

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