Waiting list ‘hit squad’ now has only five staff
Team set up to solve trolley crisis and treatment delays is all but disbanded
THE HSE team dedicated to tackling waiting lists and trolleys has just five dedicated staff.
Documents released to the Irish Mail on Sunday reveal that the much vaunted Special Delivery Unit has seen a drop of staff from 12 to 5 in two years – despite being pitched as the vanguard of the Coalition’s attempts to tackle the health crisis.
And the HSE has admitted that they could not find any records to suggest that the unit set up to tackle waiting lists and the A&E trolley crisis visited any hospitals over the course of 2014 and 2015.
Instead, the documents show that in January 2016, the month before the general election was called, four hospitals were visited.
The Special Delivery Unit (SDU) was set up in 2011 by then health minister James Reilly to find ways to speed up patients’ access to appointments and hospital beds.
At first, it found success with a 30% reduction in trolley numbers within two years, but its impact has been diluted by funding cuts.
Staff working directly in the SDU now are employees of the HSE. Two years ago, the 12 senior staff included an Assistant National Director and five Directors of Nursing as well as liaison officers for individual hospitals.
But now, the central team has been cut to five staff, including just one Director of Nursing and an Acting Assistant National Director.
These people are paid salaries through the HSE at the normal rate for their level.
Last summer, as trolley numbers increased, it emerged that special squads under the SDU would visit emergency departments. And a review of ten hospitals was further promised in January of this year.
In June last year, when he announced a squad from the SDU would visit hospitals nationwide, the Minister said: ‘We are throwing everything at it. We are expecting more improvements over the summer.’
Queries by this newspaper to the SDU on how many visits they made last year and the year before brought this response: ‘The Head of the SDU has informed me that having searched the relevant records, she has not been able to locate this record for 2014 – 15.’
Documents released under Freedom of Information Act provisions do show liaison officers visited hospitals in the SAOLTA and South/ South West hospital groups last year but at the request of the hos- pitals and not as part of a national strategy. Records were not kept of how many visits were made.
However, the SDU could say four visits were made by their liaison officers in the first two weeks of January – to Cork University Hospital, University Hospital Limerick, Beaumont Hospital in Dublin and Mullingar Hospital.
A list of liaison officers and their work schedule for 2013 was also supplied.
In January, Health Minister Leo Varadkar said: ‘The Special Delivery Unit has now been mandated to carry out an audit of nine hospitals to see how they performed over the New Year period and see if the escalation procedures were implemented.
‘It is appreciated that even when a hospital does implement all the procedures that it is supposed to do, sometimes, a little bit like the floods, hospitals can be just overwhelmed with demand.’
One document notes: ‘The visit schedule was reduced significantly as staff levels in the SDU decreased over time.’
The SDU had most success reducing how long admitted patients had to wait on trolleys for a hospital bed in 2013. That year the escalation plan was to be activated when trolley figures hit 350.
This week that number was breached on four days according to figures compiled by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
Although the SDU is now within the HSE, it was originally run through the Department of Health. Special advisor British management consultant Martin Connor left in 2013; his company was paid €544,520 according to Minister Reilly.
Another SDU alumnus, former consultant to the NHS in England Lis Nixon was paid €253,166 for work on overcrowding in emergency departments.
‘HSE could not locate files on hospital visits’