National Treatment Purchase Fund

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 10 March 2021

Wednesday, 10 March 2021

Questions (857)

David Cullinane

Question:

857. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the breakdown of the NTPF suspended outpatients list; the number of patients waiting; the length of the wait and speciality of consultant they are waiting to see; if children are included in this suspended outpatients list; the number of children currently on a suspended outpatients list; if all patients have been informed that they have been moved to a suspended outpatients list; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12972/21]

Written answers

Minister for Health

To ensure standardised waiting list management, the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) and HSE issued guidance to the acute hospital system outlining the details of outpatient suspensions on 8th December 2020, in line with the Inpatient, Daycase and Planned Procedure (IDPP) Waiting List Management Protocol 2017.

In accordance with these guidelines, patients on an outpatient waiting list should be suspended if they accept an invitation to access hospital care through the NTPF commissioning process or HSE outsourcing. Importantly, the suspension of an outpatient does not incur a ‘stop-start’ in wait time, and thus does not impacting on the patient’s wait time.

The NTPF have advised my Department that as the Outpatient Waiting List Protocol has only recently been amended for outpatient suspensions, they are not in a position to provide the information requested by the Deputy until after the February waiting list figures are published on Friday 12th March 2021.