HIQA says it’s imperative that gains relating to the expansion of capacity and management of the region’s main hospital are built on.
The Health Information and Quality Authority has today published the findings of an unannounced inspection of University Hospital Limerick, which found the privacy and dignity of patients continued to be impacted by the level of overcrowding, despite the best efforts of staff.
Inspectors found the Emergency Department to be partially compliant with three out of four national standards and non-compliant with one, which HIQA says represents some improvement on its findings in 2022.
Inspectors visited University Hospital Limerick on February 21st and 22nd this year, with a view to reviewing and assessing the effectiveness of improvements, following its last risk-based inspection in March last year.
The process included a review of the quality and safety of services in the Emergency Department and also the wider hospital, as well as engagement with local community healthcare services and GPs.
The findings included improvements in local management arrangements at the hospital, such as the appointment of a senior manager on site, for the overall daily operational running of the hospital.
Inspectors also noted improved nurse staffing levels in the ED, compared to 2022 findings, coupled with enhanced numbers of consultants in emergency medicine and a change to consultant work practices to ensure greater onsite availability over the working day and week.
There were also improvements in the way services are organised and managed and it was found that these changes had begun to yield shorter treatment times and lengths of stay for patients in the Emergency Department.
The ED remained very overcrowded, however, with 72 patients on trolleys and chairs awaiting an inpatient bed, and inspectors noted this level of overcrowding continued to impact on the privacy and dignity of patients, despite best efforts of staff.
HIQA identified additional plans aimed at addressing continued overcrowding in the ED, including two additional 96-bed blocks – the first of which is intended to open in late 2024 or early 2025, with the second in 2027.
There were also plans to build on recent improvements to the way work was organised, to enhance efficiency in the unit, as well as efforts to enhance the approach to workforce planning and vacancy filling.
The hospital has submitted a follow-up compliance plan in response to the inspection findings and the health authority says it will continue to monitor implementation of the compliance plan, to ensure patient safety risks are further reduced.
Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has today welcomed the publication of the HIQA report, saying it paints a very bleak picture of what patients face on a daily basis and the conditions nurses are working in in the Ireland’s most overcrowded hospital.
In a statement to Clare FM, the INMO says UHL has once again been found non-compliant when it comes to protecting the dignity and privacy of patients and that this is not the fault of its members, who it says are doing everything they can, in a desperate situation.
the union also says that in light of the findings that the hospital isn’t fully compliant when it comes to safe-nurse staffing, this makes the case for safe nurse staffing underpinned by legislation even more pressing.
The INMO is now calling for laser-like focus from Government and the HSE to tackling the overcrowding crisis in UHL once and for all.
