*Photograph: Brian Arthur
UL HOSPITALS group have launched a new five year strategy.
Launched last week, the 2023-2027 strategy endeavours to improve current patient flow and reaffirm the group’s commitment to the Sláintecare reform programme.
Acute hospital care is provided to a population of approximately 410,000 by the UL Hospitals Group across a network of six hospitals across Clare, Limerick and Tipperary which employ a combined 6,000 people.
From early 2024, public acute and community health services across the region will be integrated under a new entity, HSE Mid West.
Patient experience and public engagement, people performance, an integrated care system and the academic health science system are the four strategic priorities that the plan is based on.
Electric health record and digital platforms to “promote and enhance patient engagement” will be phased in over the next five years.
Efforts to value, retain and empower staff will be pushed over the next five years, the strategy detailed. “We aim to increase our overall staff retention rate for the Group. We will do this by taking a proactive approach to making sure staff are satisfied and appropriately challenged”. A recruitment operating model is to be designed while a staff retention plan will be developed and will consist of analysing exit interviews.
Thirteen focus groups across the six hospitals and wider community, workshops and one-to-one consultation were completed in the development of the strategy which “involved extensive engagement” according to Suzanne Dunne, Chief of Strategy and Transformation, UL Hospitals Group.
CEO of UL Hospitals Group, Professor Colette Cown stated, “With this plan, we renew and reaffirm our commitment to improve current patient flow and pathways of care and to implement the priorities and objectives detailed in Sláintecare”. She added, “Our strategy is designed to accommodate the unique health profile and challenges of the Mid West region”.
Planned initiatives to improve patient experience include the development of a patient engagement strategy, expansion of our Patient Council and setting up a Mid West Citizen’s panel.
Prof Cowan added, “Broad strategic goals such as these might seem aspirational at first glance but we are not publishing this five-year plan in order to leave it on the shelf. Staff across the organisation are committed to living it and delivering it in the interests of our patients”.
“Our new strategy is animated by the promise of Slaintecare to shift appropriate services from the hospital to the community and to organise and resource health services according to population health need. The Mid West has everything to gain in this new era and our strategy sets out how we will build an integrated health service and in a way that more directly involves the patients it is designed to help,” Prof Cowan concluded.
Chief Clinical Director at UL Hospitals Group, Prof Brian Lenehan outlined, “Over the five-year duration of our previous strategy, demand on our services increased by far in excess of population growth. Attendances to our ED increased by over 11% in the five years up to 2022 and at our Injury Units and Medical Assessment Units in Ennis, Nenagh and St John’s by 41% and 39% respectively, reflecting our commitment to our strategic goal of clinical transformation across all our hospital sites.
