Cork and Galway hospitals have “persistent difficulty” with overcrowding and are behind the other hospitals in improving the situation, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said.

The hospital system coped better than initially modelled during the peak of flu on Christmas week. However, the numbers on trolleys this week have risen again as normal service resumes and flu circulates due to the increased socialisation over the festive period.

Official figures from the HSE show there were 442 patients waiting on trolleys at 8am on Thursday, with a further 691 patients in surge capacity beds. These are additional inpatient beds temporarily placed in other areas of the hospital to meet demand.

A total of 75 patients were waiting more than 24 hours, of whom 14 were 75 years or older.

Cork University Hospital (CUH) had the highest number of patients on trolleys at 55, followed by Galway University Hospital at 51.

Speaking to reporters in her office in the Department of Health, Ms Carroll MacNeill said she is “not happy that there are too many people on trolleys in Cork and Galway in particular”.

“People are just as sick with the flu in the areas around the Mater or Beaumont and their performance and the management of their hospital flow, the discharging and how they’re supporting patients is consistently better,” she said.

“Beaumont had a difficult day, one day this week, but they managed it and recovered it. The same with Drogheda, they had a difficult day but they managed it and recovered it.”

The Minister said the “persistent, persistent issues” in these areas indicates they are “further behind on the process changes” that have reduced congestion in other sites, such as increased discharges and weekend work.

[ Flu hospitalisations up by a third in one week, HSE figures showOpens in new window ]

Ms Carroll MacNeill commended Limerick hospital, which she said is “performing really well”.

“They’re discharging 100 people a day despite very increased attendances. While they do have challenges on trolleys, it’s not for the same reasons as Cork and Galway where attendances haven’t increased to the same rate,” she said.

“They simply [are] not discharging at the same rate and are not using the broader facilities that are available. For example, there are people on trolleys in the Mercy Hospital or in CUH [Cork University Hospital] but there are empty beds in Mallow. I couldn’t talk to people in Cork about that and suggest that it was satisfactory.”

The Minister said they had set up a “control room” in CUH to enable discharge throughout the Cork region with knowledge of available capacity in other healthcare facilities in the county.

“[It was] to make sure that we were using all those facilities, and I can’t say to you that that is the case yet,” she said.

“If there have been 10 beds available in Mallow and 20 people on trolleys in Mercy and that’s happened two, three, four, 10 or 20 times, that’s a problem. That’s a management problem and it’s not okay.”

She said Cork and Galway are “further behind” other hospitals, but they “have certainly come a distance”.

The Minister said she will meet each region this month to examine trolley figures and to examine whether community hospitals and other facilities have been used “in the best way”.

A spokeswoman for Galway hospital said it regrets that any patient might have to wait on a trolley and acknowledged it is a “patient safety issue”.

The spokeswoman said the hospital is challenged with bed capacity, delayed discharges and high levels of respiratory illnesses but is “doing everything we can to optimise the flow of patients through the hospital”.

CUH was contacted for comment.