Have your say! Views sought as Limerick hospital seeks to expand with new strategy

LIMERICK’s oldest hospital, St John’s Hospital, is looking to the future with a new long-term strategy aimed at deepening its impact on the people of the city and wider Mid-West region.

Nine years short of its 250th year, St John’s Hospital is setting out on developing a new strategy aimed at responding to the changing needs of the patient population in areas such as chronic disease management and diabetes.

The 89-bed acute public voluntary hospital – a registered charity - with an outstanding reputation for its sense of care and warmth has embarked on a listening process with its staff and Patient Partnership Forum, GPs and the wider public to help inform the strategy.

The strategy is aimed not only at how the hospital can meet the rapidly changing needs of the public, including through expansion of its services, but also address challenges such as the lack of space and need for modernisation, which are significantly constraining progress.

To assist the strategy, the hospital is calling on the public to give its input by adding their opinion through a survey located on the hospital website - stjohnshospital.ie.

Looking to the future
We are looking to the future with a new long-term strategy for our hospital. We invite you to complete a short survey on our website https://t.co/m5GkoEbn6T homepage on the green banner titled ‘St. John’s Hospital Strategic Plan Community Engagement Survey’ pic.twitter.com/jT1n0AMzwg

— St. John's Hospital, Limerick (@StJohnsHospLmk) March 31, 2021

“The striking thing for me since I took up the post here just 18 months ago is the incredible togetherness amongst the staff, which translates into and reflects the high quality of patient care,” said CEO Emer Martin. “No one wants to be in hospital, of course, and while there are always exceptions, people tend to leave here with a sense that they not only got expert medical care but it was delivered with a deep sense of compassion. That’s hugely important to us. Our staff is our greatest asset.

“What we now want to do is to broaden our specialities so that we can bring this level of care to more people than ever before. We will do that while continuing at the same time to work in partnership with the UHL Group and the community. To understand what the public wants from us, we have to engage with the public so hence our survey, which will inform the strategy.”

Ms Martin continued: “We are ruling nothing in or out regarding this new direction but what we do know is that we want to do more, want to positively impact on more lives. We’ve already consulted with our staff and Patient Partnership Forum to ask them for their input. We are now going outside the hospital, to our wider stakeholders, such as GPs and, indeed, the general public.

“We want this to be as inclusive as possible so we want to engage not only with those who know St John’s Hospital over the decades but those who are new to Limerick, including people who have come to live here from other parts of the world. St. John’s Hospital has always been a hospital of the people and we want it to be that for future generations. So, there is no better way than to ask the people to have their say, to tell us what they would like to see from St John’s Hospital.

“By the time we finish that listening process, we will have received a really accurate review of where we are with the public and what it wants from us in the future.”