Review of acute hospital services in the Mid - Health Service Executive

Review of acute hospital services in HSE Mid-West
An action plan for acute and community services
• The current and potential contribution of primary care services, including out of hours GP services,
pre-hospital emergency care, patient transport and advanced paramedical services etc. to
enhance patient care & safety. NOTE; The review is specifically requested to make realistic
assumptions about the role of Primary Community & Continuing Care in impacting on acute
hospital services in the short, medium and longer term including international trends in best
practice and more conventional approaches to the provision of care;
• Changing public expectations of healthcare;
• Health inequalities and other social factors;
• Impacts of HSE objectives and targets such as those to further reduce waiting times;
• Transfers & retrieval of critically ill patients;
• The relationships and boundaries between acute hospital services and primary, community &
continuing care;
• Recent and current developments in the way in which health services are provided in Ireland &
elsewhere;
• Developments in diagnostic and treatment practice;
• Changes in the provision of support services or shared services;
• Developments in setting clinical standards;
• Developments in medical & health related technology;
• Current initiatives with regards to the regional planning of health services;
• The role of each of the hospitals in under graduate and post graduate teaching, training and
research;
• The clinical service roles played by other HSE Services, other Voluntary Providers and Private
Hospitals;
• Any planned revision of governance arrangements for Hospital Networks and the range of
individual acute hospitals;
• Existing national strategy and health policy documents;
• National and local reviews, both completed and underway, in relation to acute services, non acute
services, development of paediatric services, A&E, governance and resource allocation
arrangements (e.g. “Improving Safety and Achieving Better Standards – An Action Plan for Health
Services in the North East”, “Children’s Health First”);
• Health Service Transformation Agenda, particularly the targeted expansion of primary care and
post acute services, cancer control programme, development of ambulance emergency response
services, integrated chronic disease management systems, development of ambulatory day care
units / more elaborate day care in OPD, and the recommendations of the A&E Task Force;
• The availability of resources; and
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