A new report looking at the problem of overcrowding in hospital A&E units will recommend that a target of two weeks be set for the length of time patients have to wait for alternative care once they are fit for discharge from an acute hospital.
The recommendation is aimed at getting to grips with the problem of the delayed discharge of older patients from Dublin hospitals in particular, which results in acute beds being inappropriately occupied.
At present patients can be waiting months for discharge once they have received all the treatment they require in hospital.
The A&E taskforce report will also recommend that a target of six hours be set for the length of time it takes patients to get through hospital emergency departments.
The Health Service Executive has already been working towards this target, though it only begins to count the hours a patient is waiting once a decision to admit the patient has been made.
Meanwhile the taskforce report, due to be published shortly, comes to the same conclusion as UK consultants Tribal Secta when it says a number of A&E units are unfit for the numbers they have to deal with. These include the A&E unit at Wexford and Letterkenny general hospitals.
The report makes general recommendations for all hospitals, as well as specific recommendations for up to 15 hospitals that have experienced ongoing A&E overcrowding.
It has, for example, recommended improved diagnostic services such as CT scanning at a number of hospitals as well as better and direct access for GPs to these diagnostic facilities to prevent them having to refer patients via A&E.
Furthermore it recommends more specialist clinics be set up to see patients with a range of conditions. The idea would be that GPs would again refer patients directly to these, rather than to A&E.
And it says diagnostic services should be available around the clock, which will result in changed work practices for many staff, not just hospital consultants.
The taskforce, which is chaired by Angela Fitzgerald of the HSE, was established last March to try to come up with solutions to end overcrowding in hospital emergency departments. Members of the taskforce visited hospitals to see the problems in A&E for themselves.
Prior to addressing the taskforce's first meeting, Minister for Health Mary Harney told reporters in Dublin that the A&E problem had to be treated as a national emergency.
The Irish Nurses' Organisation has acknowledged that overcrowding in a number of A&Es has abated in recent months but it said yesterday there were again 260 patients on trolleys in A&E units in the State. The HSE claimed the number was 138 and confirmed that 36 of these patients were waiting 13 to 24 hours and 11 were waiting more than 24 hours for a bed.