Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 October 2018
143. Deputy Shane Cassells asked the Minister for Health the action he will take to address the tripling in the number of outpatients waiting a year plus since September 2016 for an appointment in Navan Hospital; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43609/18]
View answerIn Budget 2019 the Government has prioritised improving access and reducing waiting times for patients, with funding to the National Treatment Purchase fund (NTPF) increasing from €55 million in 2018 to €75 million in 2019, of which, €6 million will be committed to outpatient activity.
To date in 2018, the NTPF has approved almost 12,700 additional first-time outpatient appointments and this is projected to increase to 40,000 appointments next year. I recently met with the CEO’s of all hospital groups to discuss improving access for patients and requested that they work with the NTPF and HSE in 2019 to develop innovative proposals to address the number of long waiters on outpatient lists in 2019.
Outpatient waiting list figures for the end of September show that there were just over 6,000 patients waiting for a first appointment in Navan Hospital and of these, over 72% are waiting 12 months or less.
More broadly, Ireland East Hospital Group (IEHG) has engaged in a number of initiatives to address long waiting lists throughout the wider hospital group. IEHG advises that at present 73% of all patients are offered an outpatient appointment within one year of referral.
In addition, the Central Waiting List Validation function, which was established in the NTPF last month, will deliver a standardised approach to validation across all hospitals in line with best patient-centred practices. This new function will have many benefits including the identification of patients on waiting lists who are ready and available to proceed with hospital care, the reduction in the Did Not Attend rate (DNA), and an improvement in information for managing waiting lists. The NTPF estimates that 30,000 patients who no longer require treatment will come off the outpatient waiting list in 2019 as a result of this activity.
