(May 29th 2024) Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) is one Ireland’s largest acute hospitals serving a rapidly growing population of over 700,000 people living in South and West Dublin - 13% of the total population of Ireland.
The Hospital welcomes the announcement by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly TD this afternoon about the support for 196 of additional beds for the Hospital.
Commenting on the announcement, Lucy Nugent, Chief Executive of TUH said, “The Hospital has been operating over capacity for many years. Demographic change has intensified the bed capacity gap, with increased inpatient demand coming from both an older and more complex patient cohorts. We are delighted with this announcement today which will future proof the Hospital and the care we can provide to our patients for years to come.”
The Hospital has been working closely with the HSE on developing bed capacity with the proposed development being all single patients’ rooms. We are looking forward to progressing this build as quickly as possible on the shovel ready site already identified on the campus.
The benefits to this plan are multifaceted including
The Patient in our Community
- Faster access to inpatient beds
- Reduction in lengthy trolley waits within the ED and improved Patient Experience Times
- Reduced waiting time for elective procedures and surgeries in the Hospital
- Enhanced patient environment and dignity
- Less internal transfers within the Hospital
The Hospital
- Significant improvement in infection control process and reduce the risk of hospital acquired infections for patients
- The Hospital would operate at an improved and more appropriate level of inpatient occupancy
- The Hospital could increase elective surgical activity, improve access for patients. Potentially this could mean up to 1,000 additional operations per year
- Provide patients with greatly improved access to emergency and elective services
Staff
- More time for patient care – and dramatically reducing time accommodating patients
- Enable staff to use their specialist skills to their fullest extent
- New facility would be centrally accessible and reduce the long ward rounds of teams around the Hospital – more time for teaching and more time with the patient
- Hospital moves more to quality care delivery and away from crisis management due to being at full or over full capacity
