HSE assessing arrangement with private hospitals

The HSE’s national director of acute operations, Liam Woods, has said that the current arrangement between the HSE and private hospitals which is due to expire in August, is being assessed.

Mr Woods told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that while the HSE was alert to the fact that the expected surge of Covid-19 cases had been managed to date, he was anxious that would remain the case, but the risk of a surge at some date still remained.

Extra capacity (in private hospitals) was needed to avoid further risk to the community, he said.

The current arrangement with private hospitals was working well and some services, such as cancer treatment, had moved from public to private settings.

Under the current system all patients are “public first” with their care assessed on the basis of clinical need.

Those who wish can access private care, he said. Having private hospital capacity “affords us the opportunity to support elective care.”

Mr Woods also said that the HSE was working with the National Treatment Purchase Fund to ensure people on waiting lists could access care in private hospitals if they wished.

At present hospitals are operating under parallel streams of care – Covid and non-Covid – and there was evidence that such a system was still needed, he said.

There was concern that patients with suspected stroke or heart attacks were not attending emergency departments with a fall of 35-40% attendance levels.

Under the parallel care system staff relied on PPE and greater space to protect patients and staff, he said.

“We will be seeing fewer people in the same places.”

Mr Woods said there would be more virtual clinics which were very popular and successful.

“We are trying to complete as many episodes of care in the community.”