HSE experts to be sent to tackle hospital overcrowding in Cork and Galway

A Hiqa report found Cork University Hospital is heavily reliant on agency nursing staff to ensure safe and sustainable staffing levels. Picture: Dan Linehan

The same team of HSE experts sent to University Hospital Limerick in a bid to tackle chronic overcrowding will be deployed to Cork University Hospital (CUH) and University Hospital Galway, the health minister has said.

The announcement came on the same day that the health watchdog published a damning report into overcrowding at CUH’s emergency department. The report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) followed an unannounced inspection in June and found that the hospital is heavily reliant on agency nursing staff to ensure safe and sustainable staffing levels.