Fewer patients on trolleys despite rise in emergencies

There has been a reduction in the number of patients on trolleys awaiting a hospital bed, even with more people attending emergency departments, according to the HSE.

The number of people attending emergency departments has increased by an average of 8.7% compared to last year, while there was a 2.2% reduction in the number of patients on trolleys awaiting admission.

There were 155,148 emergency department attendances from January 1 to February 18, an increase of 12,463 on the same period last year. According to the HSE’s TrolleyGAR, the number of patients on trollies fell from 16,503 to 16,141 over the corresponding period.