Further action sought after HIQA inspection of Mayo hospital

An unannounced inspection by HIQA of Mayo University Hospital last June found the hospital to be compliant or substantially compliant in eight national standards and partially compliant in five of the 13 national standards assessed.

Several improvements were noted since the last inspection, such as the reconfiguration of the quality and safety department, recruitment of quality and patient safety personnel, and the introduction of a patient advisory liaison service.

While the times for patients to progress through the emergency department (ED) had improved since the last inspection, they still remained outside of HSE targets.

The assessment continued: "Hospital management was identifying and acting on opportunities to continually improve the quality and safety of healthcare services at the hospital.

"There had been a significant increase in medical staffing at junior and consultant level in the ED since HIQA’s last inspection.

"However, there continued to be vacancy rates above 10% in the healthcare assistant, nursing and health and social care professional roles.

"HIQA was satisfied that the hospital had systems and processes in place to respond promptly, openly and effectively to complaints and concerns raised by people using the service and noted good practice in relation to in-house patient satisfaction surveys.

"The hospital had increased ED capacity since the last inspection and inspectors found that patient privacy and dignity was supported for patients accommodated in individual cubicles and multi-occupancy rooms.

"However, for patients placed on trolleys along the corridor, the promotion of privacy and dignity was limited.

"While HIQA notes the improvements made since the last inspection across the hospital, further improvements were needed to improve patient experience in the ED."

Local election candidate Harry Barrett said the report demands that serious action be taken on staffing in certain roles and providing dignity for patients in the emergency department.

He elaborated: "While there are many improvements mentioned in this report, I am still extremely concerned about the waiting times for patients going through the emergency department and the indignity they have to go through in terms of the lack of privacy.

This is very tough on elderly patients and I will keep highlighting this issue until the situation is resolved.

"A promise was made in 2011 to sort the trolley crisis and it has been broken every single year since. This is not acceptable."