UL Hospital Group outlines winter initiatives for patients and staff

HSE Mid West Community Healthcare and UL Hospitals Group are together outlining actions that will be taken to support local health services this winter, as part of their joint Winter Plan 2022/23. 

Each winter, hospitals and Emergency Departments face significant pressure due to increased public demand. 

This joint Winter Plan covering acute and community services in the Mid West region seeks to support patients, and reduce pressure on services by facilitating hospital discharges and delivering more care in the community.

The HSE Winter Plan 2022/23 includes a number of actions to help manage increased demand over the winter period, including: delivering additional capacity in acute and community services.

This will include the ongoing delivery of additional acute and community beds and increasing staffing capacity in line with the Safe Staffing and Skill-Mix Framework. 

Improving pathways of care for patients: Alternative patient pathways will be implemented during the winter period to help reduce the number of presentations and admissions to hospital and improve patient flow and discharge.  This includes Enhanced Community Care (ECC) supports. 

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Roll out of the vaccination programme for Flu and COVID-19: The influenza and COVID-19 vaccination programmes continue to be rolled out. Targeted communications will be used to increase awareness and uptake for our winter vaccine programmes.

Implementation of the Pandemic Preparedness Plan: The Public Health Plan will be implemented as appropriate which includes a surge and emergency response plan, in the event of a significant surge in COVID-19 infections.

Nationally, funding of just over €169 million has been assigned to implement these measures over Winter 2022 / 2023, and this will include the recruitment of 608 posts across a range of services. 

Colette Cowan, CEO of UL Hospitals Group, said: “Winter is the most challenging season for acute, community and primary healthcare providers, with intense levels of demand for services. The year to date has been one of our busiest ever, with record numbers of attendances at our ED and high numbers of elderly people with very complex conditions.

"We hope the Winter Plan’s focus on patient flow and recruitment will help provide safe and effective healthcare alternatives to the busy ED pathway. The plan, jointly devised by UL Hospitals Group and HSE Mid West Community Healthcare, is an integrated strategy to help people of all ages to get the care they need, whether that’s in our hospitals or closer to home.

"All the acute hospital initiatives dovetail with the strategies of our Community Healthcare colleagues in a way that will enhance patient flow throughout our hospitals and the health system across the region.”