All State hospitals failed HSE admittance targets

NONE OF the State’s hospitals reached the HSE’s official target of having 95 per cent of patients who attend emergency departments discharged or admitted within six hours.

The HSE’s latest performance report, for the month of February, also says that no hospital achieved the separate target of having 100 per cent of people who require admission placed in a bed within nine hours of registration at the emergency department.

The report identifies Tallaght and the Mater hospitals as the institutions which “are facing the greatest challenge” in reaching the target of having 95 per cent of all attendees at emergency department discharged or admitted within six hours.

It said in February the figure for Tallaght hospital was 35.5 per cent while at the Mater 47.3 per cent of those turning up at the emergency department were either discharged or admitted within six hours.

“The hospitals which faced the greatest challenge in reaching the nine-hour target for people admitted, reporting a performance of 30 per cent or under, were the Mater (15 per cent), Beaumont (16 per cent), Tallaght (26 per cent), St James’s (26 per cent) and University Hospital Galway (25 per cent).”

The report says the top performing hospitals – those that reached a performance level of 80 per cent or above for all attendees being seen within six hours, and 90 per cent or above in relation to those who were admitted within nine hours – were Letterkenny, Kerry, Portiuncula and St John’s in Limerick.

The performance results for February show the HSE recorded a deficit of €89.3 million against a budget of €2.020 billion. Hospitals accounted for €48.7 million of the deficit with community services recording an overrun of €29.3 million.

On foot of the results the HSE again warned that patient services could be hit further. “We know that some hospitals came into 2012 with levels of expenditure which were too high relative to their available resource. These hospitals have suffered further budget cuts in 2012 and it is a major challenge for them to implement plans to bring their expenditure back into line with their allocation.”