Over the last four weeks, more than 1,300 patients have been placed on beds or trolleys in hospital inpatient wards when those wards were already considered full, nurses have claimed.

According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation's (INMO) new initiative, Ward Watch, this means that every day over the last month, an average of 79 patients have been placed in ‘overcrowded and inappropriate environments on inpatient wards in hospitals across the country'.

Ward Watch will count the number of additional patients on beds, trolleys or chairs in inpatient wards nationwide if those patients exceed the stated complement of that ward. This initiative will work in tandem with the INMO's long standing Trolley Watch initiative, which shows how many patients are waiting on trolleys in emergency departments (EDs) at the beginning of each day.

The INMO insisted that this will provide a ‘new combined overall measure of hospital overcrowding'.

It said that it had launched this measure due to continual feedback from nurses and midwives that patients were being placed in inappropriate environments. This, they said, increased the risk of cross infection and therefore compromised patient care. It also leads to a loss of privacy and dignity for patients.

The INMO has been compiling these figures for some weeks now and found that in the four weeks since March 11, a total of 1,347 patients were placed on beds and trolleys in already full inpatient wards.

This appears to be a particular problem in five hospitals, where overcrowding on inpatient wards occurs on a daily basis. They are:
-Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin
-Tallaght Hospital in Dublin
-Mid-West Regional Hospital in Limerick
-Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar, Westmeath
-Wexford General Hospital.

However, the INMO pointed out that this overcrowding also occurs regularly in some other hospitals, despite the fact that these have closed beds, such as Sligo General and the Midland Regional Hospital in Tullamore, Offaly.

The organisation also pointed out that when compared with the same four-week period in 2012, the number of patients placed in inappropriate environments is 19% higher this year. This is despite the fact that the comparative Trolley Watch figure shows a 7% reduction in the number of patients on trolleys between last year and this year.

According to INMO president, Claire Mahon, these figures show that patient care ‘is being compromised as a direct result of inadequate bed capacity'.

"This problem is compounded by poor staffing as a result of hospitals refusing to employ staff or because they cannot find the required number of nurses," she said.

Also commenting on the new initiative, INMO general secretary, Liam Doran, said that while the reduction in the number of patients on trolleys is to be welcomed, Ward Watch confirms that this ‘is completely offset by the placing of additional patients on inpatient wards'.

"In March 2006, the former Minister for Health, Mary Harney, declared the A&E crisis a national emergency. Now just over seven years later the trolley numbers are down, but the combined ward/trolley count shows an increase of 19%, indicating that the problem has spread to the wards and the shortage of beds continues," Mr Doran explained.

He called on the Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly, to increase the bed capacity in all hospitals that regularly face overcrowding.