§ Mrs. Iris RobinsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will appoint an experienced individual or group(a) to conduct a Province-wide appraisal of the course of hospital admissions and (b) to suggest means of enhancing efficiency from the primary care assessment stage through to ward discharge; and if he will make a statement. [167605]
§ Angela SmithImproving the flow of emergency hospital admissions is a key priority for my Department. A target has been set to reduce by a third the number of patients waiting more than two hours in an accident and emergency department between the decision to admit and admission to a ward, by 31 March 2005 compared to 2003–04 levels. Boards and trusts are required to submit proposals to streamline processes relating to emergency patients flows to the Department by 31 August 2004.
The Department plans to take forward a regional initiative during 2004–05 to improve the flow of emergency patients through hospital. This regional programme, which will ensure that recognised best practice is implemented across all hospitals, will be overseen and directed by a Regional Steering Group comprising people with a wide range of experience in this area. It will build on work undertaken in the Eastern Board area over the past year which examined the way hospitals admitted emergency patients, how those patients moved through the hospital system and how they were discharged, and the experiences of similar programmes developed by the Modernisation Agency in England.