Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 2 June 2016
11. Deputy Dessie Ellis asked the Minister for Health his progress, in conjunction with the Health Service Executive, in securing funding to complete episodes of scheduled care commenced in 2015; the amount of funding required to complete these episodes; how many episodes of care are outstanding for 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13695/16]
View answerIn January 2015, my predecessor introduced 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. As the House will know, additional funding of €51 million was approved in 2015 to maximise capacity across public and voluntary hospitals as well as outsourcing activity where capacity was not available to meet patient needs. HSE figures for the end of December 2015 show 95% achievement for inpatient and day case waiting lists and 93% achievement for outpatient waiting lists against the 15 month maximum wait time.
The HSE has advised that €28 million of the funding provided was utilised in 2015. Expenditure on this initiative has continued into 2016 in respect of those patients who had been referred for appointments in the latter part of 2015, as well as those who had commenced treatment which could not be completed before year end.
In addition to the almost 40,500 patients who have already been treated under the 2015 initiative, there are currently 700 patients who are in the process of completing their episodes of care. The HSE has provided assurances that all episodes of care are to be completed by 20 June and that all treatment providers have been apprised of this deadline. Final expenditure on this initiative will be available after the end of this month, once all episodes of care have been delivered.
The outcomes of this initiative will inform the implementation of the programme for partnership Government commitment to provide €50 million per year to reduce waiting lists, including a sum of €15 million for the National Treatment Purchase Fund. I will be considering in the context of budget 2017 how best to utilise that €50 million, inclusive of the €15 million, to tackle waiting lists. I will await the end of this period of care at the end of the month in terms of how to best evaluate that.
The National Treatment Purchase Fund is simply code for privatising a problem. We do not support that. We support investment in our public health service. There is €50 million of continued investment - that is it how it is termed - per year and yet the ministerial brief given to the Minister advises that there was only €28 million of funding spent in 2015. There is clearly a deficit in those figures. Was this primary funding or additional funding?
In terms of what the money is spent on, exactly how many episodes of care did this cover for the year?
I also fully support the public health service and want to see investment in it, and I want to see the committee we set up yesterday devise a vision, a plan and funding costs for how to get the service to the place we all want it to be over the next decade.
Not privatisation.
I also recognise the NTPF as a useful vehicle at a time when there are people at home who could be watching our questions session today and who are in need of an operation, where perhaps the capacity does not currently exist within the public health service.
There needs to be investment in front-line services.
While we will disagree on the extent of that, it is very much my position and that of the Government.
With regard to the €50 million, €51 million was provided in 2015 and the Deputy is correct in regard to the ministerial briefing. Some of that funding has spilled over into 2016 in terms of pay. The €50 million referred to in the programme for Government is not something that would have been available in my ministerial briefing. It is a political commitment by me and in the programme for Government to allocate €50 million in the budget.
That is the question I was asking.
I expect that €50 million of the health budget next year will be allocated to waiting list initiatives. As I said, I will be looking at how best to outline that. I will provide the Deputy with some of the figures later.
