Minister for Health publishes important data and insights into the productivity of the health service
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From: Department of Health
- Published on: 11 July 2024
- Last updated on: 16 July 2024
- The Department of Health is publishing productivity data for all hospitals, including healthcare investment, workforce, activity and performance information
- The HSE is now making available online outpatient activity in 21 hospital sites
The Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly T.D. is today publishing important health service productivity data and insights, detailing healthcare investment, workforce, activity and performance across the health service.
Today’s publication is another step in demonstrating to the public the levels of productivity across the health sector, based on the significant increases in funding and staff invested in our health services during the lifetime of this Government.
In 2023, the health service provided 3.7 million outpatient appointments, 650,000 inpatient and 1.2 million day case discharges. In addition, there were a further 1.7 million presentations to our Emergency Departments for care last year.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) is also publishing outpatient activity in 21 hospital sites, broken down by hospital and specialty to help the public and GPs to understand regional and hospital performance on waiting times for elective procedures, and on urgent and emergency care.
Minister Donnelly, said:
“Patients need to get access to care as quickly as possible. While waiting lists have fallen for the last two years, more people can be treated, and treated more quickly, by improving the efficiency and productivity of our health service.
“The fact that waiting lists have fallen for two years in a row is positive. So is the fact that we reduced hospital overcrowding last year and delivered a 14% reduction in the number of patients on trolleys over the first five months of this year. Progress is being made but we have more to do.
“I will continue to fight for more funding for patients and our health service. However, we must also do more with the funding we already receive. The publication of this data aims to improve transparency and allow the public to see how each hospital and each specialty is doing with the resources they have. The information will also be used to benchmark activity at specialty, hospitals and HSE Health Regions.”
The data shows significant variations in the average number of outpatients being seen by consultants in the same specialty, as well as a big reduction in the overall number of outpatients being seen per patient-facing consultant.
Data currently published on the HSE website includes:
- hospital activity data - showing patient activity and how hospitals perform against waiting time targets
- waiting for care data - showing how many people are waiting for care, and for how long
- urgent and emergency care reports - showing how many people are on hospital trolleys or waiting for discharge
- safety and quality of care data - showing information about the quality of care in hospitals, including *serious incidents, infection control and readmissions
The Minister brought a memo to Cabinet earlier this week, in which he outlined how continued future development funding will be prioritised to those hospitals and services that demonstrate that they are maximising existing funding.
Minister Donnelly, said:
“I have engaged extensively with the HSE on the issue of productivity and on the importance of performance management and reporting tools, the adoption of which will be critical when it comes to the deployment of new development funding and of capital investment.
“It is essential for patients that the investment we make in our health service delivers full value for those who need care. While waiting lists have fallen for the last two years, and the average waiting time for treatment continues to decline, we need to make much more progress. And we must do everything we can to ensure that we maximise productivity in our hospitals and community services.”
Today’s development builds on some significant steps taken this year by the HSE and the Department of Health to improve visibility of productivity in health service delivery. In April, a detailed analysis of hospital productivity in the period from 2016 to 2022 was published.
Notes to editor:
The publication of this productivity data is important to support managers, leaders and staff across the HSE.
- It will enable teams across the health service see and understand how they are performing compared to other comparable sites.
- Through identification of highly productive services and associated good practices can support local, regional and national teams in improving productivity where it needs to be better.
1. Department of Health Data on productivity across all hospital sites.
This data publication will show productivity levels across all hospital sites. It will give insight into how productivity is measured in the health sector. It shows the investment in health workforce numbers and associated levels of activity across all hospital sites.
The link to access this data is here.
2. HSE dashboard for outpatient activity in 21 hospital sites:
This interactive dashboard will allow the public to search for productivity in different medical specialisms across public hospitals hospitals. The dashboard will be an interactive visual tool that allows users to see specific levels of productivity in relation to hospitals in their own areas, and nationally under specialisms. They will also be able to see how hospitals perform comparatively.
This dashboard will continue to be updated with more hospitals, including voluntary hospitals, joining over the coming weeks and months.
The link to access this data is here.