UL Hospitals
UL Hospitals is one of six hospital networks established by the government in Ireland in 2013 under the Higgins Report. The UL Hospitals network serves the counties of Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary with a population of 380,000 people. All Irish Hospitals are categorised into one of four models which determines the complexity of care delivered in each hospital (Table1). Each network has an academic partner which for UL Hospitals is the University of Limerick.
Table 1. Types and activity in hospitals in Ireland
|
Type of Hospital |
Hospital Activity |
|
Model 1 |
Community/ District Hospital |
|
Model 2 |
Ambulatory Dare, Diagnostics, selected Medical In-Patients, Medical Assessment and Local Injuries Unit |
|
Model 2-S |
As for Model 2 PLUS Intermediate Elective Surgery |
|
Model 3 |
Undifferentiated Acute Medical and Surgical Patients, Emergency Department and Intensive Care |
|
Model 4 |
University Teaching Hospital - as for Model 3 PLUS Tertiary Referral and Higher Level Intensive Care |
Source: The Report of the National Acute Medicine Programme (2010)
UL Hospitals comprises six hospitals of which University Hospital Limerick is a Model 4, Ennis Hospital and Nenagh Hospital are Model 2, and St John’s Hospital is a Model 2S. There are two ‘specialty hospitals’, Croom Hospital for Orthopaedics and University Maternity Hospital for Obstetrics and Gynaecology. ‘UL Hospitals’ is a single hospital that operates across six sites under one governance system. There are Model 1 hospitals in the region: Limerick (St Camillus’s), Newcastlewest (St Ita’s), Ennis (St Joseph’s) and Thurles (Hospital of the Assumption). These are under the governance of the community services and not technically part of the group. There is no model 3 hospital in the network.
Visit the UL Hospitals website here.
