Consultants seek meeting with Health Minister over hospital reorganisation

The body representing hospital consultants is seeking a meeting with the Health Minister after he announced that almost 50 hospitals will be headed by six independent groups under plans to reform Ireland’s acute hospital system.

James Reilly claimed the plan will modernise the health system and deliver safe and high quality care for patients across the country.

No small hospital will close under the scheme, but some will have specialist services transferred to bigger facilities while gaining more routine surgeries.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association is seeking a meeting with the minister and the health services management on the organisational arrangements and the resourcing of the plans.

“The key issue is how resources and personnel are to be configured allowing the better delivery of health care to patients in a very difficult health environment,” it said.

“The establishment of hospital groups signals a fundamental modernisation of our health system organisation in line with best international practice,” Mr Reilly said.

“The new hospital groups, each with their own governance and management, have been designed so as to provide the optimal configuration for hospitals to deliver high-quality, safe patient care which is cost effective and guarantees better outcomes for patients.”

Each group will have between six and 11 hospitals, depending on population and needs, and be centred around large teaching hospitals with links to universities.

They will also have its own chief executive and five other senior officers who will be accountable for the each facility.

There will be three in Dublin, including Dublin North East, headed by Beaumont Hospital; Dublin Midlands led by St James’s Hospital, and Dublin East led by the Mater Hospital.

Cork University Hospital will head the South/South West group, with the West/North West led by University Hospital Galway and Midwest headed by the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick.

Professor John Higgins led a group of international experts who devised the plan, which paves the way for the establishment of hospital trusts.

“We have a wonderful opportunity to make a step change within the Irish hospital system,” he said.

“We need to draw down the enthusiasm, the expertise and the experience of our all our staff. Working together we can deliver real change.”

Health chiefs said each group of hospitals will work together as a single entity managed as one, providing acute care for patients across the region and integrating community and primary care.

The Cabinet earlier approved the plans for the reorganisation of public hospitals, which Dr Reilly claimed will make them more efficient and accountable.

He maintained there will be a need for smaller and larger hospitals to operate together and to maximise the amount of care delivered locally.

“Hospital groups will secure the future of our smaller hospital,” he stressed.

“When the new groups are established, services can be exchanged between sites.

“This will result in the maintenance of activity in smaller hospitals and will allow them to focus on the provision of care that is safe and appropriate.”

Benefits for patients are said to include high standard of quality and uniformity in hospital care and cost effective hospital care in a timely and sustainable manner.

Universities linked with the groups, including Trinity College, NUI Galway and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), welcomed the reforms.

Dr Jim Browne, president of NUI Galway, said he is convinced it is the best way forward in the interests of patients and the other stakeholders in the health system.

“I have served as a board member of the Galway Roscommon Group which has been in place on an administrative basis for the past few months and I have seen at first hand the opportunity which local autonomy, albeit on a limited scale, empowered management and the scale achieved by bringing a number of hospitals together has created,” he said.

“An important feature of the new hospital groups is the integration of teaching and research with clinical practice.

“This is a welcome development which will serve patients well while also promoting innovation in the health sector.”

Elsewhere Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghin O Caolain claimed two reports published on the proposed changes provide more questions than answers.

“Communities will look to them in vain for any definite information about the fate of their hospitals,” he said.

“Meanwhile this Government continues to impose cuts which hit services to patients in every hospital.

“The grouping of hospitals is stated to be in preparation for the establishment of Hospital Trusts,” he continued.

“This is based on the fundamentally flawed Fine Gael model of healthcare through competing private insurers.

“There will be real concerns at a number of hospital sites and within whole communities on this new configuration.”