Upgrades to Cork city centre hospital on hold due to concerns over associated bed closures

Necessary upgrade works in South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital have not been able to progress due to the impact bed closures for the duration of the works would have, a recent Hiqa report found.

The report into the hospital found it to be compliant in four areas and substantially compliant in seven, with issues arising in terms of the building itself and staff training.

While inspectors found the physical environment in the clinical areas visited was clean and well maintained, they noted the physical infrastructure of the hospital continues to pose challenges in the upkeep and maintenance and is a daily focus for hospital management.

The infrastructure was recorded as a high-rated risk on the hospital risk register, particularly for its impact on infection prevention and control.

Inspectors noted: “The hospital had secured capital funding to refurbish and upgrade a number of toilet and shower facilities, but to date this has not been progressed due to the impact of bed closures for the duration of the works.

“Senior management informed inspectors that challenges with the hospitals environment were reviewed daily, and that senior management and the [infection prevention and control] team carried out monthly infrastructure walkabouts with ongoing mitigation controls put in place as issues arose.

“Business cases had been submitted to the SSWHG [South/Southwest Hospital Group] to secure capital funding to carry out major infrastructural reconfiguration to remediate a number of the risks identified.”

Inspectors also reviewed training records for mandatory and essential training, and found compliance with required training for hospital staff varied across specialities. Staff were 7% to 77% up to date for infection prevention and control training, 73% to 94% for hand hygiene, 46% to 76% for the Irish national early warning system, 42% to 82% for basic life support.

Additionally, in the clinical areas where paediatrics were managed, nurses were not all paediatric trained — which was not in line with recommendations in the national model of care for paediatric healthcare.

Inspectors were informed that due to challenges in accessing paediatric advanced life support and other specialised paediatric training courses for staff, the hospital were currently working towards offering these training courses ‘in house’, which would ensure a greater number of staff could avail of them.