HSE report raises concerns over the way the patients are dealt with

The HSE’s latest annual report yet again raises issues around the way the patients are dealt with in the country’s A&Es as well as below-target ambulance response times in emergency situations.

The health body set a target for 2015 that no patients would be stuck in emergency departments for more than 24 hours. However, the annual report for last year shows that, by year-end almost 4% of attendees in the A&Es were there for longer than that.

Furthermore, it fell well below its target of having 95% of A&E attendees discharged or admitted within six hours. By the end of 2015 that had been the case for just 68.2% of patients.

There was a similar issue with patients waiting for elective procedures. The HSE set a 2015 target that 100% of patients would be admitted within eight months for an elective procedure for adults and 20 weeks for children. Yet for adult day cases, the percentage was 76.5% and for adult adult inpatient it was just 71.9%. For the children the performance was even worse. Just 58.3% were admitted within the 20-week target for day procedures and 53% for inpatient procedures.

Another issue raised by the report is ambulance response times. The National Ambulance Service responded to 303,502 calls last year. The Health Information and Quality Authority set a target that 95% of emergency cases would be responded to within 18 minutes and 59 seconds. Yet the HSE report shows that in 2015 only 76% of life-threatening cardiac or respiratory arrest call-outs were responded to within that deadline and only 64% of other life-threatening injuries or illnesses. Those percentages showed no improvement on 2014.

When it came to the HSE’s cancer services, the report showed mixed performance.

While 96.9% of all urgent breast cancer service attendances were seen within two weeks of referral - the target was 95% - just 58.7% of patients attending prostate cancer rapid access clinics were offered appointments within 20 days.

The report shows the number of people who made complaints about the HSE’s services jumped by 11% last year compared to 2014. There were 9,289 complaints recorded by the health body in 2015 up from 8,375 in 2014 and from just 6,823 in 2013.

The biggest bugbear last year was around “communication and information” which accounted for 3,517 complaints. That was followed by 2,520 issues with “safe and effective care” and 2,130 around “access”.

The HSE report confirms three quarters of the complaints were dealt with within 30 working days, the highest percentage since 2011.

On a more positive note there were 7,304 compliments recorded, although the HSE pointed out that many go unrecorded and it is encouraging all staff to record compliments “as they allow us to capture data on the positive aspects of our services and learn from what is working well”.

As part of its report, the HSE also included the latest statistics from the OECD’s “Health at a Glance” survey. That showed significant issues with health care for Irish patients. Ireland ranked in the bottom third for a number of key factors including doctors per capita (25th out of 34); hospital beds per capita (26th out of 34); asthma and pulmonary disease admissions (32nd); and adult obesity (24th).