The Irish hospital system adapted swiftly to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, however its efforts were hindered by longstanding problems, such as capacity issues and poor physical infrastructure, a new report has shown.

The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) has published an overview report of the monitoring and regulation of healthcare services in 2020.

Throughout 2020, HIQA focused its healthcare monitoring resources on known areas of risk, with a particular focus on the management of Covid-19 across public acute hospitals, as well as rehabilitation and community inpatient services. 

During the year, it carried out 66 inspections in healthcare services for the purpose of monitoring against relevant national standards and regulations.

During these inspections, HIQA noted that while it has seen progress in achieving compliance with standards across various areas monitored, the pandemic has put “extreme pressure on every service”.

“HIQA has noticed that despite an increase in both temporary and longer-term investment in services in response to the pandemic, some healthcare services continue to be proportionately less resourced than others. In many hospitals, ongoing challenges posed by poor physical infrastructure and constrained service capacity continued to be identified. These issues have been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic,” it said.

Other longstanding issues which remain include long waiting lists, overcrowding problems in hospitals and an over-reliance on a hospital-centric model of care.

According to HIQA’s director of regulation, Mary Dunnion, the pandemic required HIQA to change its inspection plans in 2020 in order to focus on the challenges posed by the pandemic.

“In most instances, we found an effective approach to adapt to this unprecedented crisis in hospitals. However, hospitals’ efforts were made more difficult due to underlying historic problems with infrastructure, limited bed capacity and unequal or limited access to specialist workforce input and advice - problems that HIQA’s prior monitoring work against national standards has consistently highlighted,” she said.

According to HIQA’s head of healthcare, Sean Egan, the pandemic has “further reiterated that a high performing, fit-for-purpose healthcare service that is compliant with national standards is required to meet Ireland’s needs now and into the future”.

“HIQA remains committed to supporting continual and sustainable improvement across the healthcare services that we have a remit for monitoring or regulating. We intend to enhance our approach to future monitoring against national standards, to further support recovery and reform of services as we emerge from the pandemic,” he added.

The full HIQA report can be viewed here.