Written Answers Nos. 316-325
318. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of patients on primary care and community healthcare waiting lists, for each care service, at the end of each quarter and September 2019-2023 in tabular form; the breakdown by length of wait and by age; the numbers waiting for initial assessment, initial therapy/intervention, and follow up therapy/intervention for each specialty; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45866/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
319. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of patients on home support waiting lists at the end of each quarter and September 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form; and the breakdown by length of wait. [45867/23]
View answerAs this is an operational matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.
320. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of people on CAMHS waiting lists by CHO and length of wait at the end of each quarter and September 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form. [45868/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.
321. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of people on waiting lists for Jigsaw by CHO and length of wait at the end of each quarter and September 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form. [45869/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.
322. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of persons on diagnostic waiting lists at the end of each quarter of 2022 and 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45870/23]
View answerThe HSE advises that a pilot project commenced in 2016 by the HSE Acute Hospitals Division to progress the collection of national radiology waiting list data. The project has been supported by the Radiology Clinical Care Programme and has involved key stakeholders across the system including the National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) Team, Hospital Groups, and the support of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) for data collection and data management expertise.
The information that is currently being collected is presently being tested and validated at hospital, hospital group and national level and as such should not be used/reported without the context of the caveats set out below:
• Data is subject to inclusions and exclusions which are documented in the Data Profile Document. This document is available from Acute Operations and has been circulated to all Hospital Groups.
• Data contains urgent, routine and surveillance/planned activity which is currently not broken down in detail, as such this includes surveillance/planned activity which may not be exceeding planned date.
• Data is still undergoing validation at Hospital and Hospital Group level. Data does not take into account local nuances at site level (Site profile developed to support understanding of same).
• The purpose of this aggregate data is to provide a National Level overview of the number of patients waiting for modalities of CT, MRI and Ultrasound.
• This report is not intended to be used for the active management of hospital diagnostics waiting list, local reports and mechanisms should continue to be used for the management of diagnostics waiting lists at hospital level.
The National Treatment Purchase Fund provides my Department with Quarterly reports which set out waiting list data for CT, MRI and Ultrasound. The HSE advises that, at present, further diagnostic scans (including cholangiopancreatography, electroencephalogram, angiogram, and bone scan), are not yet captured as part of this project.
I have provided the Deputy with the Quarter 1, 2, 3 and 4 reports for 2022 in response to Parliamentary Question No. 320 of 30 March 2023, and the Quarter 1 report for 2023 in response to Parliamentary Question No. 249 of 5 May 2023. The Reports requested by the Deputy for Quarter 2 and 3 of 2023 are attached.
At the end of Quarter 3 2023, there were a total of 265,356 patients reported on the waiting list from all sites, this represents all outpatients waiting, urgent, semi urgent, routine and planned/surveillance (where diagnostic access is planned at particular time intervals).
To ensure that Deputies have access to these quarterly diagnostic reports as soon as they are available, my Department will put an arrangement in place whereby the reports can be provided to Deputies once they have been received from the NTPF, and will contact the Deputy directly in this regard.
323. Deputy Michael Ring asked the Minister for Health how many people have died in Ireland from an illness (details supplied) per year from 2014 to 2021 inclusive, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45873/23]
View answerHIV information, prevention and treatment is a policy priority under the National Sexual Health Strategy (NSHS). Free home STI testing is available in every county across Ireland. Anyone who is aged 17 or over can order a free STI test to their home or to any other valid postal address in Ireland. Further information on this service can be found at www.sexualwellbeing.ie.
In addition to the new national home STI testing service, other ongoing initiatives include:
• Expanding the National Condom Distribution Service
• Expanding the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) programme, available through the network of 23 free STI clinics and a small number of GPs to those at substantial risk of contracting HIV through sexual contact. PrEP has received an additional allocation of €600,000 in Budget 2024.
• Ireland joined the HIV Fast Track Cities initiative in 2019 (Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway). HIV Fast-Track Cities aims to increase access to HIV testing and treatment and to reduce stigma, aiming to end the HIV epidemic by 2030
• Developing a new Model of Care for sexual health services.
• Refreshing the new National Sexual Health Strategy This process is underway and includes identifying where new resources may be needed to expand capacity
HIV is a notifiable disease and is tracked by the HPSC on a weekly basis, annual HIV reports also available on their website www.hpsc.ie/notifiablediseases/.
As this is a service matter I have asked that the HSE also respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
324. Deputy Michael Ring asked the Minister for Health how many people have died in Ireland from breast cancer per year from 2014 to 2021, inclusive, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45874/23]
View answerAccording to the National Cancer Registry’s (NCRI) Cancer Trends No. 38 report published in 2022, in the period 2017-2019, invasive breast cancer accounted for 31% of invasive cancers (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer) in women. The total number of diagnosed cases of breast cancer per year has increased steadily since 1994.
The NCRI's Annual Statistical Report 2022 shows that, overall, 5-year net survival for breast cancer has increased from 72% in cases diagnosed in the period 1994-1998 to 88% in those diagnosed in the period 2014-2018. Increases in survival were seen across all age groups, with the greatest improvement in women in the screening age group (50-69 years) whose survival increased from 74% to 94% between 1994-1998 and 2014-2018.
Increased funding for cancer services in 2021 and 2022 has had a positive impact on waiting times in symptomatic breast disease clinics. For urgent attendances to symptomatic breast disease clinics, waiting times at the end of 2022 were down 70% compared to the previous 11 months, while waiting times were down approximately 25% compared to the previous 11 months for non-urgent attendances.
A Model of Care for Hereditary Cancer was launched in June of this year. This Model of Care will inform the development of services for the identification and management of people with an inherited cancer predisposition. New development funding in 2021 and 2022 has facilitated work in this area, including:
• Development of GP referral guidelines for breast family history.
• Completion of a needs assessment for those with a BRCA gene alteration.
• Development of online training for healthcare professionals delivering mainstreamed BRCA testing, i.e. genetic testing embedded in oncology services.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) collects and makes available data on cancer deaths by year of death. Figures are currently available up to 2020, with deaths from breast cancer (males and females) all ages, per year 2014-2020 as follows:
|
Year |
Number of deaths due to breast cancer (C50) |
|
2014 |
740 |
|
2015 |
680 |
|
2016 |
763 |
|
2017 |
729 |
|
2018 |
788 |
|
2019 |
697 |
|
2020 |
777 |
Source (data.cso.ie/table/VSD14 and data.cso.ie/table/VSA29).
325. Deputy Michael Ring asked the Minister for Health how many people have died in Ireland from a condition (details supplied) per year from 2014 to 2021 inclusive, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45875/23]
View answerReferring to HSE as this is an operational matter.
