Emergency presentations at Portlaoise hospital surge to 50,000

The demand for emergency hospital care from people living and Laois and surrounding counties who depend on Portlaoise hospital has risen to nearly 50,000, according to new 'productivity' figures published by the Department of Health.

The figures is contained in a new "interactive dashboard of important health service productivity data" published by the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill.

A statement to the Leinster Express / Laois Live says it provides insights, detailing healthcare investment, workforce, activity and performance across the health service.

The dashboard shows that in 2024 there were 49,800 presentations to the Emergency Department (A&E / ED) at the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. That was up nearly 10% on the previous year and 20% higher than 2019 before Covid-19 hit.

Patient presentations fell during the pandemic but were still in five figures. About 32,600 attended the A&E during 2020 which was the peak pandemic year. 

The HSE had drafted detailed plans in 2016 to downgrade the hospital by 2022. This would have seen the ED shut down with paediatrics, maternity, ICU and most paediatrics being relocated to other hospitals. The Department's Dashboard reveals that there were nearly 45,000 presentations to the hospital in 2022.

Portlaoise is part of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group which also includes acute hospitals in Offaly, Westmeath, Kildare and Dublin. The Portlaoise hospital's ED was second behind Mullingar hospital in terms of patient activity in 2025.

The 50,000 who attended Portlaoise for emergency care represent about 10% of the 500,000 attendances at Dublin Midlands Hospital Group facilities in 2024. MORE BELOW DATABASE GRAPH.

Graph of activity from the Dashboard at Portlaoise Hospital's A&E.

The hospital has also been busier on the outpatient front, where attendances reached some 36,300 last year. This was up 5.4% on 2023. However, the number is well short of the 41,100 outpatient presentations in 2019 before the pandemic.

There has also been a sharp rise in discharging patients from the hospital with 16,000 recorded inpatient discharges last year. This was up by a significant 14% on the previous year. This exceeded the pre-Covid figure of 15,000.

Daycase discharges is the one area of activity where patient throughput at Portlaoise fell last year. There were 5,600 discharges after a procedure. There were nearly 7,000 such discharges in 2019.

The dashboard also shows figures on staffing and funding. On average, whole time equivalent staff numbers increased by 30% in hospitals nationally between 2019 and 2024. The rise at the Laois hospital was 21%.

The average national change in real expenditure over five years was 47.5% but funding ruse by 42.1% in Portlaoise. That was the sixth lowest percentage increase in Ireland. Naas enjoyed a 56% rise in funding over the same period.

Portlaoise hospital is undergoing extensive modernisation at present with a new wing due to open in 2025 attached to the Emergency Department. MORE BELOW PHOTO.

Construction work on the new wing at Portlaoise hosptial.

The Department of Health said that in 2024, the health service delivered four million outpatient appointments, representing a 19% increase on appointments delivered in 2019. In addition, there were 1.2 million day-case appointments (13% increase), 690,000 inpatient appointments (8% increase) and 1.8 million emergency presentations (22% increase).

READ ALSO: Over €19 million spent on agency staff after Portlaoise hospital

Minister Carroll MacNeill said: “Greater productivity means faster access and better health outcomes for patients. A key theme of the Programme for Government is productivity, and transparency is crucial to achieving this goal.

“In 2025, we are investing €10 billion in our public hospitals. This dashboard will help the public understand what this level of funding delivers. It will also serve as a tool for healthcare managers and clinicians to identify areas of best practice and underperformance by specialty, hospital, and region. As a system, we need to become more agile in learning from and investing in areas that are performing well and addressing any barriers to increasing productivity.

“We are focusing on several productivity indicators over the next year, such as the number of outpatient appointments per consultant and the average length of stay in a hospital.

“The data shows that prior to 2019, an average hospital consultant was seeing more patients per year than in 2024, despite significant increases in investment. We need to understand why this is happening and what can be done to support the system in delivering efficient and better patient care,” she said.

The Department of Health statment said the Programme for Government 2025 commits to embedding productivity in patient care and ensuring full transparency in published data. It says the dashboard publication builds on analytics published in 2024 at national and health region level to provide insights at hospital and specialty level while adding interactive functionality.