David Cullinane
Question:793. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health his plans to publish diagnostic and community health waiting lists on a monthly basis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16542/22]
View answerTuesday, 29 March 2022
Questions (793)
Written answers
The 2022 Waiting List Action Plan includes actions to address both diagnostic and community waiting lists. Under the Plan, €5 million has been allocated to secure an additional 30,000 acute diagnostics appointments. Waiting list management, processes and systems are also being developed for acute diagnostics as part of the longer-term reform actions. A programme of work is due to commence, subject to my Department’s approval, to deliver full waiting list data collection for all radiology diagnostics as well as a waiting list management protocol for radiology diagnostics, to be developed by the National Treatment Purchase Fund and the HSE. The Plan will also progress towards achievement of the Government maximum waiting time targets. The DoH, in consultation with the HSE, will work with key stakeholders to define the scope of diagnostics, procedures, and related services to be included within the maximum wait time target across acute scheduled care.
Longer-term fundamental reform is dependent on resolving the delivery of integrated care which is patient focused and requires that delays in access to community care are addressed. Therefore, under the Waiting List Action Plan, important exploratory and foundational actions will be undertaken to map out and take short, medium-and long-term action to improve access and address waiting lists and waiting times in the community. These actions include the design and implementation of the Integrated Community Case Management System (ICCMS) as a foundational case management system to support communication between healthcare providers and effective management, planning and delivery of services; and the development of a process to complete a capacity and demand analysis across community waiting lists.