Brendan Smith
Question:22. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Health the number of persons currently waiting for inpatient or day patient orthopaedic treatment in the north east [36579/15]
View answerThursday, 22 October 2015
Questions (22)
Written answers
Improving timely access to care is a key priority for the Government. In January, I put in place maximum permissible waiting times for inpatient and day case treatment and outpatient appointments of 18 months by 30 June and 15 months by year end. The HSE was provided with additional funding of €51m to ensure that these maximum waiting times are achieved. The funding provided is intended to maximise capacity across public and voluntary hospitals as well as outsourcing activity where the capacity is not available to meet patient needs within the maximum allowable waiting time.
In June, the HSE reported a performance against the 18 month maximum waiting time of 99.6% for in-patient/day cases and 92% for out-patients. Concerted efforts have been made to reduce outpatient waiting lists by facilitating additional clinics outside conventional working hours and outsourcing where capacity is limited. The success of this approach is evident, with the reduction of over 4,300 in the overall outpatient waiting lists in the six weeks to end of September.
Over 4,620 outpatient appointments will be provided specifically for those waiting 15 months and over in the next 6 weeks, and approx 20,250 patients from the waiting list will undergo an inpatient or daycase procedure or scope in that period also. The most recent published NTPF report for 30 September, indicates that in the North East there is a total of 320 people waiting for elective orthopaedic surgery in Our Lady's Hospital in Navan. No patients are waiting over 15 months and just 1 patient is waiting over 12 months. Our Lady of Lourdes, Drogheda does not undertake elective orthopaedic surgery and patients are referred for surgery to Navan.