Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said he has a draft Urgent Care Plan from the Health Service Executive to deal with overcrowding in emergency departments.
Today he held a virtual meeting with around 20 emergency medicine consultants to hear their views on the solutions.
The minister has already held meetings with frontline staff, doctors, nurses, allied healthcare staff and managers on the issue.
Mr Donnelly said that the plan will be an all year one to provide the capacity needed in hospitals, the community and the discharge system to get ahead of the problem of too many patients waiting on trolleys.
The plan will require funding, he added, and this will be looked at through the estimates process for Budget 2024.
Mr Donnelly said he wanted to see the plan in place early this year and that sanction will be needed for extra staff, including an expansion of injury units and having more GPs in place.
The minister said he wanted to avoid a situation where hospitals are getting sanction for issues in November and December.
He also said he heard from consultants on the need to move to a seven day a week service and that the solution to patients on trolleys needs a whole hospital approach.
A record 931 patients were reported to be on trolleys on 3 January, by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
The INMO said that this morning there were 436 admitted patients waiting for a bed in hospitals around the country.
The hospital worst affected is University Hospital Limerick with 82 waiting, while there were 66 patients waiting for a bed at Cork University Hospital; 35 at University Hospital Galway and 31 at St James's Hospital in Dublin.
HSE hiring staff at unprecedented levels
There is a challenge in getting as many agency workers as may be needed in the health system, according to Minister Donnelly.
He said there were some positive reasons for this, including that Ireland has an economy where there is basically full employment and so there are not many people around looking for work.
Within the public health service, Mr Donnelly added, the HSE has been hiring at unprecedented levels and around 21,000 extra staff have been added since the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said that some of the agency workers are now coming into the HSE as permanent employees.
Mr Donnelly said his own view is that wherever possible it is good to have access to agency staff but ultimately the service wants permanent teams hired and in place.
