Bed shortage across public hospitals to top 3,000 by 2030 as population growth and demand heap pressure on health service
ESRI’s Dr Brendan Walsh says hospitals face immediate deficit of 1,000 inpatient beds with 300 extra hospital beds needed each year to address population growth and meet demand for care
ESRI research shows immediate 1,000 bed deficit across public hospitals in 2023 and an additional 300 beds required per annum.- Expert calls out inability to meet growing demand due to lack of planning for sufficient hospital capacity.
- Hospitals are unlikely to be able to provide care to a staggering 73,900 additional people on waiting list by the end of the year to meet Government reduction target.
- Dr Brendan Walsh of the ESRI: “We are now entering a territory where we’re going to have issues regarding strains in the hospital sector and bed deficits for years to come.”
A senior researcher with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) says the Irish health system is currently experiencing a situation where it is unable to keep up with the population’s demand for care.
Speaking in a New Video as part of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association’s (IHCA) Care Can’t Wait campaign, the ESRI’s Dr Brendan Walsh said there is currently a 1,000-bed deficit across public hospitals with an additional 300 extra beds required per annum on top of this figure.
This comes at a time when public hospitals are unlikely to be able to provide care to a staggering 73,900 additional people who are on waiting lists before the end of the year, to achieve the Government’s reduction target for 2023.
Dr Brendan Walsh says the inability of public hospitals to meet this growing demand is due to a lack of planning for sufficient hospital capacity going back several years, along with other issues associated with Covid.
Latest National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) figures show that 883,300 people were on some form of hospital waiting list at the end of October.1 This indicates that more patients are being added to waiting lists than are being taken off, because demand for care is significantly increasing and hospital capacity is insufficient.
In the new video, Dr Walsh describes the Irish health service as a ‘hostage to fortune’. He says due to people living longer, the demand for healthcare has increased but capacity, workforce and health system changes have not been able to keep up:
“We have released a research paper where we estimated that the potential deficit within the public hospital system regarding inpatient beds is about 1,000 in the system and based upon continued changes in our demographics an additional 300 beds will be required annually.2
“We have seen quite a lot of investment in recent years when it comes to beds, however we’re starting from a very low base and the level of investment has slowed down quite a bit. We are now entering a territory where we’re going to have issues regarding strains in the hospital sector and bed deficits for years to come.
“We must act quickly and move toward community care where it’s appropriate, but we must also understand that there are deficits in our hospital system and try to fill those deficits as quickly as possible.”
Commenting on the ESRI’s warning, IHCA President Prof Rob Landers, said:
“While the Government planned to open 261 acute beds in 2023, only 162 (62%) of these were additional beds. This level of bed expansion is less than provided for in the National Development Plans, which averages 260 additional beds per annum.
“It is also far less than the recommendations from the ESRI, which estimates public acute hospitals need 1,000 inpatient beds immediately and over 300 beds a year just to keep up with demand from population pressures.
“It is deeply regrettable that the Budget did not contain the required funding to build and open the 1,500 rapid build additional hospital beds promised for 2023 and 2024 or to progress the four elective hospitals included in the Sláintecare Plan in 2017. We’re urging the Government to commit the promised €1 billion capital budget to open these 1,500 beds without delay.”
ENDS
Notes:
1. Latest NTFP data as at end October 2023: https://www.ntpf.ie/home/nwld.htm
2. ‘Inpatient bed capacity requirements in Ireland in 2023: Evidence on the public acute hospital system’, ESRI, 29 March 2023: https://www.esri.ie/system/files/publications/RN20230101.pdf
Dr Brendan Walsh’s comments were made in a new video released on social media today by the IHCA as part of its #CareCantWait campaign. The video is available here: https://vimeo.com/887929260/fd9b1ee43f?share=copy
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