Winter plan put in place for Mayo acute and community healthcare services

Mayo University Hospital (MUH) and Community Healthcare West are implementing further initiatives this winter to support hospital admission avoidance and promote patient flow across all acute and community healthcare facilities through an integrated approach.

The initiatives will maximise the use of available resources to manage unscheduled care pressure and support an overall improvement to the patient journey.

The initiatives identified for 2022/2023 below are focused on established best practice in relation to admission avoidance and patient flow. An enhanced GP/Hospital Liaison will support the provision of care, in the right place at the right time.

MUH and CHW initiatives as part of the Winter Plan 2022/23 include:

•Recruitment of staff to support and optimise Patient Flow from admission to discharge.

This will help ensure we maximise usage of community support services by strengthening referral pathways to support admission avoidance and facilitate rapid discharge.

•Recruitment of a GP liaison nurse within MUH.

•Recruitment of 6 staff nurses to support surge capacity at MUH.

•Recruitment of a senior occupational therapist and senior social worker in Ballina District Hospital to support timely discharges.

•Expansion of the Home First team to enable delivery of the service 7 days a week.

This specialist multidisciplinary team (MDT) supports patients over the age of 75 years treated in the MUH Emergency Department (ED).

•Recruitment of a senior physiotherapist and senior occupational therapist as part of a virtual ward to support timely discharges.

•Enhanced integrated community and hospital services through the provision of an urgent ambulatory service for post discharge follow-up to support early discharging of medical patients.

•CHW will continue to provide rehabilitation, respite beds and short-stay beds to target admission avoidance and rapid discharge

•MUH and CHW will provide enhancement of GP access to diagnostics and out-of-hours (OOH) supports.

MUH and CHW will maximise usage of the outlined community support services by strengthening and standardising referral pathways to support admission avoidance and discharge.

Tony Canavan, CEO of Saolta University Health Care Group said: “This Joint Winter Plan allocation will increase access for patients to a wider range of services in the community, decreasing demand on acute facilities.

"These measures will ensure we can provide the best possible support to the population in the coming months.

"Ultimately, reducing long waiting times in our EDs will require more beds in our acute hospitals and in community units and the teams necessary to staff them safely.

"This plan improves upon already established resources, and provides opportunities for improvement. Through collaboration between disciplines and services we can promote optimal patient care closer to home.”

Breda Crehan Roche, chief officer, Community Healthcare West stated: “ We will continue to provide supports, through available national funds to support admission avoidance including community intervention teams (CIT), home support, aids and appliances, GP access to diagnostics and GP out of hours (OOHs).

"Investment has been received for the recruitment a GP liaison nurse to facilitate admission avoidance.

"These measures will ensure the continued development of community services and the growth in care to people at home or in community-based HSE facilities so they don’t have to be admitted to hospital unless they really need to be."