WAITING TIMES:THE MAJORITY of hospitals failed to meet emergency department waiting time targets in a snapshot study carried out by the Health Information and Quality Authority.
The authority said patients were waiting for “unacceptably long periods”.
As part of its investigation into Tallaght hospital, the authority looked at waiting times in emergency departments in 33 other acute adult hospitals around the State on August 24th last year.
National and international best practice recommends that 95 per cent of patients who arrive at an emergency department and who need to be admitted should be in a hospital bed within six hours and all should be admitted within nine hours.
The snapshot study found 24 of 25 emergency departments failed to meet the target “despite the recommendations and initiatives undertaken as a result of the HSE emergency department task force report in 2007”. There was no electronic data available for nine hospitals.
The longest average wait from registration in the emergency department to admission to a ward was just over 20 hours at Cavan General Hospital.
The average wait for the Mater hospital in Dublin was 19 hours and for Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda was 15 minutes less.
However, the longest time from registration to admission experienced by any individual was almost 138 hours, or nearly six days, at Portiuncula Hospital, in Ballinasloe, Co Galway.
“In practice, this means that despite well-publicised initiatives and strategies,” the authority said, “patients continue to wait for unacceptably long periods in emergency departments in Ireland and, as a result, are potentially exposed to higher levels of risk than is necessary.”
It acknowledged the special delivery unit, set up by Minister for Health James Reilly to tackle waiting times, had since begun a performance management initiative at eight hospitals.
“At the time of reporting, the SDU confirmed that support mechanisms had been extended to all hospitals providing emergency department services in Ireland,” the authority said.
It said supports and controls should be put in place to ensure the initiatives were sustainable.
The authority also examined hospital bed closures and found 611 beds were closed on August 24th last year. Twenty-five hospitals reported bed closures, with the largest number, 66, at Sligo Regional Hospital, which has 318 beds. Beaumont Hospital in Dublin had 65 beds of its 668 closed and St Luke’s in Kilkenny had 49 of its 249 shut.
“A reduction in the inpatient bed capacity as a result of bed closures may, if not effectively managed, potentially have a serious adverse impact on the timeliness of scheduled and unscheduled patient care,” the authority warned.
