Reilly announces new hospital target

MARY MINIHAN

MINISTER FOR Health James Reilly has announced a new target to ensure no patient will wait more than nine hours in emergency departments before they get a bed or are discharged.

Dr Reilly said the number of patients on trolleys and waiting times generally were being reduced at a time when budgets were being significantly cut.

“I would describe that as a cause for cautious optimism and we are not resting on that place now. We are moving forward to set new targets.

“We’ll no longer be counting the number of people on trolleys as being the measure of what we will be achieving, but rather looking that all patients who arrive at our emergency departments from the point of registration to the point they either land in a bed in the hospital or walk home, or get home some other way, will be no longer than nine hours for all patients.”

Dr Reilly said he hoped the target would be reached within six hours for 95 per cent of patients by December. A nine-month target has also been set for elective inpatient treatment, medical or surgical, with treatment for cancer and other urgent cases taking place earlier. Lower targets set by the previous government were not attained.

He was speaking at the launch of a report from the Department of Health’s special delivery unit which outlined a drop in the level of overcrowding in emergency departments.

Dr Martin Connor, a senior adviser to the unit, said the cumulative trolley count in January 2012 was 5,046. In January 2011, the figure was 6,893 while the previous year, the figure was 6,304.

“It is difficult to say congratulations when there’s still 5,000 patients that aren’t getting the service we would want,” Dr Connor said. However, the situation was “significantly better than it was”.