Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 20 April 2023
400. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Health the degree by which it is intended to reduce the numbers on hospital waiting lists by whatever means over the next twelve months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18862/23]
View answerThe Government recognises that acute hospital scheduled care waiting lists are far too long, and that many patients are waiting an unacceptably long time for care. However, progress is being made through our new multi-annual approach to reducing and reforming hospital waiting lists and times.
The 2023 Waiting List Action Plan which was published on the 7th of March is the next stage of this new multi-annual approach. Under the Plan, the Department of Health is funding the HSE and NTPF to deliver services to remove c. 1.66 million patients from waiting lists, resulting in a projected reduction of just over 10% by year-end to c.621,000 people.
This is building on the reductions in the waiting lists achieved in Q4 2021 (5%) and again in 2022 (4%) via previous waiting list action plans – 2022 was the first annual decrease in hospital waiting lists since 2015.
Funding of €363 million has been allocated to the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan which includes:
• €123 million to be made available to the HSE on a recurring basis to progress longer-term reforms including to streamline and reconfigure care pathways and to sustainably enhance capacity – in particular for the priority areas of Obesity/Bariatrics, Paediatric Orthopaedics (Spina Bifida/Scoliosis) and Gynaecology.
• €150 million allocated to the NTPF to procure additional capacity to reduce hospital waiting lists backlogs.
• €90 million to the HSE and NTPF to implement additional short-term measures to address acute scheduled care waiting list backlogs in 2023.
The NTPF’s 2022 initiative relating to offering treatment to clinically suitable patients waiting more than 6 months for 15 high volume procedures (including cataracts, hip, and knee replacements), has been extended in 2023 through reducing the time to 3 months and expanding to 20 high volume procedures.
To progress the implementation of long-term reforms in tandem with continuing to address waiting list backlogs, the 2023 Plan focuses on three key areas under which 30 short, medium, and long-term actions will be delivered this year to achieve the target reductions in waiting lists and waiting times. The three key areas are Delivery Capacity in 2023, Reforming Scheduled Care, and Enabling Scheduled Care Reform.
While there is much focus on the overall waiting list, the agreed longer-term objective is that people are seen within the agreed Sláintecare maximum wait times (10 weeks OPD, 12 weeks IPDC / GI Scope). As such, the key metric is not the total number of people waiting, but rather the total number of people waiting longer than these Sláintecare maximum wait times. In 2022, the number of people waiting over the Sláintecare targets fell by 11%, or 56,000 people. Since the pandemic peaks in 2020/21, there has been a 24% reduction in the number of people waiting longer than the Sláintecare targets. The 2023 Plan will continue this positive momentum by driving further significant waiting time improvements by the end of this year.
The Waiting List Task Force will continue to meet regularly to drive and oversee progress of the delivery of the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan throughout the year and provide regular updates to the Minister for Health and the Sláintecare Programme Board.
