Abseentism rates at Galway University hospitals have dropped significantly in the past four months.
The rates for University and Merlin Park hospitals have fallen consistently since the beginning of the year.
They have decreased from 5.3 per cent in January to 4.92 per cent in February, 4.43 per cent in March and 4.45 per cent in April.
Giving an update on abseentism figures at a meeting of the regional health forum west this week, Tony Canavan, chief operating officer of the Galway and Roscommon University Hospital Group, said these figures demonstrated a significant decrease for GUH. He stated the hospitals were confident of achieving a rate closer to the national target of 3.5 per cent over the coming months.
He explained that staff on sick leave were required to contact their line manager on the first day of absence in line with the managing attendance policy. If an absence exceeded two continuous days a medical certificate must be submitted on the third day. All absences were recorded by the HR Department on an abseentism database.
“Absenteeism is a key item on the hospital management team agenda and monthly absenteeism reports are given to each directorate which highlight the areas in need of most attention,” outlined Mr Canavan.
“We place a huge emphasis on the return to work discussion, dealing with frequent short-term illnesses and review/monitoring meetings between staff members and their line managers. This is followed by return to work reviews where the absenteeism is ongoing and may ultimately lead to the suspension of sick pay or disciplinary procedures being invoked.”
Waiting lists
Providing an update on developments in the hospital group, including details of waiting lists for inpatient and outpatient treatment, Bill Maher, the chief executive of the Galway and Roscommon University Hospital Group, said its priorities were to improve patients’ access to emergency departments and meet the special delivery unit target time for inpatient waiting lists. This was a nine month wait for adults and 20 weeks for children. He said this would be achieved using the resources (treatment capacity and theatre allocations ) of all hospitals in the group.
“A range of measures have been introduced which is helping us to achieve this target, including waiting list validation, improved reporting and focus, more effective use of resources across all of the hospitals in the group, patient education and engagement, as well as increasing theatre capacity by opening previously closed theatres.
“In January, GUH had 9,901 patients who would potentially breach the target of waiting longer than nine months if they were not seen by the target date of September 30. As of the May 17 we have reduced the number waiting to 4,661 patients and we are on course to achieve the special delivery unit target in September.
He outlined there were currently 40,281 patients on waiting lists for outpatient appointments. These figures should be viewed in the context of the overall number of patients who attended the hospitals each week, he said. In 2011 there were 217,766 outpatient attendances. On average the hospital treats more than 4,000 outpatients each week.
“We have identified key specialities that have very long waiting times and we will address these as a matter of priority. The outpatient waiting lists are validated as patients are called to each clinic and this ensures that only patients who still require an appointment are given a date.”
Mr Maher went on to say that the hospitals are committed to reducing the number of patients who do not turn up for appointments. This reduces the hospitals’ capacity to see new patients and adds considerably to waiting lists.
“In 2011 there were 35,000 appointments missed by patients not showing up. We ask our patients to make every effort to attend their designated appointments or if they are unable to attend, to notify us in advance so that their slots may be offered to other patients.”
