News

The Productive Theatre Initiative could save another €100 million,
If it were transposed across the health system, the Minister for Health has suggested.
Dr James Reilly told the Dáil that the initiative, which was applied in just five theatres, or 2.5 per cent of theatres across the country, had already saved €2.5 million.
New hospital admissions policies had resulted in significant savings, Minister Reilly informed Sinn Féin’s Health spokesperson Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin. In the acute medical assessment unit in Cork University Hospital, significant admission of patients had been avoided and this had saved 11,000 bed days over a six-month period.
“Nobody is more frustrated than a surgeon or physician trying to do a procedure who’s not able to do the work planned for the day because of a lack of beds, personnel, nursing staff or an anaesthetist. That comes down to organisation and planning, which will be addressed,” the Minister said.
The HSE’s orthopaedic initiative has also resulted in savings of €6 million across orthopaedic services by insisting that patients be admitted on the day of their procedure, not the night before. “If patients are admitted on the day, we pay the hospital directly,” Dr Reilly said. “That could lead to a saving in one hospital alone of more than €10 million — I am told between €15 million and €17 million — in a full year.”
Not transposing excellence across the system has been the big failure of the HSE in the past, he added. By Gary Culliton. imt.ie

News

Casualty patients in rural Kerry, north Mayo, west Clare and southwest Donegal were more than an hour’s drive from a hospital emergency department (ED), a new mapping tool has shown.
The free tool has allowed analysis of specific areas across the whole island of Ireland in terms of accessibility to services, such as 24-hour and partial emergency hospitals and GP surgeries.
Among the worst locations for quick emergency access were Kilkee, Co Clare, at 69 minutes and nearby Lisdoonvarna at 59 minutes, while Belmullet on the northwest coast was a 68-minute drive, according to the tool developed by National University of Ireland Maynooth’s National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis. In contrast, if you live in Dublin, which also has the best GP coverage, you are on average just eight minutes’ travel from a 24-hour ED.
While highlighting the importance of such mapping tools to policy makers, Prof Rob Kitchin, NUI Maynooth, who drew up the system, said it was as likely the figures would be used to dictate where cuts were made as to identify gaps in services.
In general, average travel times to services in Northern Ireland were lower than in the Republic, with the average access to a 24-hour full emergency hospital in the North at 16 minutes, compared to 21 minutes in the Republic.
To use the mapping tool, see http://airomaps.nuim.ie/airoaccessmap.