Saolta University Health Care Group publishes its 2017 Annual Report

The second public meeting of the Board of the Saolta University Health Care Group took place this week in University Hospital Galway. At the meeting the Saolta Group launched its 2017 Annual Report.

Commenting Dr John Killeen, Chairman of the Board said, “This is the ninth meeting of the Saolta Board which was appointed by the Minister for Health at the end of 2017 and our second public meeting. The members of the Saolta Board provide strong regional representation for the geographical area that the Group’s hospitals serve. The Board is responsible for ensuring that the Group is achieving its strategic objectives and managing its available resources to provide sustainable, safe and effective person- centred care. Board members also participate in a number of sub-committees which deal with patient safety, audit, strategic manpower planning and finance and provide an extremely important external dimension to the work undertaken by the Group.

At the meeting the Board received a copy of the Group’s 2017 Annual Report which highlights the scale and scope of the work delivered on each of the seven hospital sites that comprise the Saolta Group. Despite on-going increasing demand for services and resources, our staff continue to deliver high quality care to almost one million people in 2017.”

Commenting on the report, Saolta Group CEO Maurice Power said, “Demand for our services continues to increase each year and that trend continued in 2017.

“Over 295,000 patients received either inpatient or day case treatments in our hospitals throughout the course of the year. There were 202,747 attendances at the five Emergency Departments which group-wide was an increase of almost 3% from the previous year. Of those attendances, over 60,000 patients were admitted to our hospitals. All of our Group’s Emergency Departments saw significant increases in the numbers attending ED. 6195 patients attended the Urgent Care Centre at Roscommon University Hospital which was an increase of 21.83% on the previous year.

“Our Outpatients Departments saw 624,043 patients across each of our hospitals which is also an increase on 2016 attendances. The number of births continues to fall, and in 2017, 9024 babies were born in the five maternity units in the Saolta Group, a decrease of just over 5% when compared to the previous year.  The length of time our patients wait in our EDs to be admitted to hospital is still a significant issue for the Group and we are continually working to try to reduce this. A patient flow project has been in place in University Hospital Galway over the last 18 months which has facilitated a significant number of improvements to help us admit and transfer patients throughout the hospital as quickly as possible. We are continuing to work closely with our community colleagues, particularly on projects that help improve the care provided to our elderly patients. Our waiting lists also remain the Group’s single biggest challenge. We are currently working closely with the National Treatment Purchase Fund to run additional clinical sessions across our hospitals to try and reduce the length of time our patients are waiting for hospital appointments and procedures.

“Our staff are our single biggest asset and I would like to acknowledge the enormous role they play in the delivery of care to our patients every single day, often in very challenging circumstances.”

Annual Report 2017 avilable here