Written Answers Nos. 238-252
238. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the percentage of clinical status 1 ECHO and clinical status 1 DELTA incidents responded to by a patient-carrying vehicle in 18 minutes and 59 seconds or less in quarter 1 and by month in each of the years 2019-2023, nationally and by ambulance region in tabular form; the average length of such response times nationally and by region; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20886/23]
View answer239. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number and percentage of incidents responded to by the ambulance service by clinical status and sub status in January and February in each of the years 2019-2023, inclusive. [20887/23]
View answer240. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the average ambulance turnaround time at each emergency department in quarter 1 and by month in 2023, inclusive, in tabular form. [20888/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 238 to 240, inclusive, together.
As these are service matters I have asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
241. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the mean, median, and maximum wait time on NTPF reported waiting lists by speciality by location for quarter 1 and by month in each of the years 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form. [20889/23]
View answer242. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of children on NTPF reported waiting lists by specialty by location for quarter 1 and by month in each of the years 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form; and the mean, median, and maximum wait time. [20890/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 241 and 242 together.
It is recognised that waiting times for many scheduled appointments and procedures were too long before and have been made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Department of Health continues to work with the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to identify ways to improve access to care. On the 7th March, I published the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, which is the next stage of a new multi-annual approach to sustainably reduce and reform hospital waiting lists, and builds on the foundational work done through the short-term Waiting List Action Plan between September and December 2021, which was followed by the first full year Waiting List Action Plan for 2022, both having reversed the annual trend of rising waiting lists.
The 2023 Plan sets out the priorities to continue to address waiting lists this year. The 30 actions in the Plan, which are governed by the Waiting List Task Force, focus on delivering capacity, reforming scheduled care and enabling scheduled care reform.
For 2023, funding totalling €443 million is being allocated to tackle Waiting Lists with €363 million of this being allocated to the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, to implement longer term reforms and provide additional public and private activity to clear backlogs exacerbated during the pandemic. This will reduce hospital waiting lists by 10% in 2023 as well as continuing to significantly reduce waiting times in line with Sláintecare recommendations. The remaining €80 million of the €443 million is being targeted at various measures to alleviate community/primary care waiting lists.
With this ambitious 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, my Department, the HSE and the NTPF are taking the next steps in the multi-annual approach towards achieving our vision of a world-class public healthcare system in which everyone has timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care, where and when they need it, in line with Sláintecare reforms.
In relation to the particular queries raised, the attached tables, provided to my Department by the NTPF, show the number of patients on outpatient and inpatient/day case waiting lists, by hospital, by specialty at the end of each month in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and to the end of March in 2023. The document also includes a report providing a breakdown of the number of children on the same waiting lists by specialty and by hospital for the same time periods.
The NTPF has advised that the health system does not collect the data necessary to calculate average wait times. In particular, the time to treatment of patients who have already received their care is not collected. The NTPF collects data on patients currently on the waiting list and the average time that these patients have been waiting is provided here. The NTPF has further advised that in order to mitigate against identification or self-identification of individuals, they have excluded records where there are <5 patients waiting in a particular hospital specialty.
243. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of people aged over 65 and over 75 years on NTPF-reported waiting lists by specialty by location for quarter 1 and by month in each of the years 2019-2023, in tabular form; and the mean, median, and maximum wait time. [20891/23]
View answerAs this is an operational matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.
244. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of patients on primary care and community healthcare waiting lists, for each care service, at the end of quarter 1 2019-2023, inclusive in tabular form; the breakdown by length of wait and by age; the number waiting for initial assessment, initial therapy/intervention, and follow up therapy/ intervention for each specialty; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20892/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
245. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of patients on home support waiting lists at the end of quarter 1 2019-2023, inclusive in tabular form; and the breakdown by length of wait. [20894/23]
View answerAs this is an operational matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.
246. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of children on waiting lists for an assessment of need at the end of quarter 1 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form; the number overdue for completion; and the average length of wait. [20897/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
247. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of people on CAMHS waiting lists by CHO and length of wait at the end of quarter 1 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form. [20898/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.
248. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of people on waiting lists for Jigsaw by CHO and length of wait at the end of quarter 1 2019-2023, inclusive, in tabular form. [20899/23]
View answerAs this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.
249. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of persons on diagnostic waiting lists at the end of quarter 1 2023; the number for each quarter of 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20900/23]
View answerThe HSE advises that a pilot project commenced in 2016 by the HSE Acute Hospitals Division to progress the collection of national radiology waiting list data. The project has been supported by the Radiology Clinical Care Programme and has involved key stakeholders across the system including the National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) Team, Hospital Groups, and the support of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) for data collection and data management expertise.
The information that is currently being collected is presently being tested and validated at hospital, hospital group and national level and as such should not be used/reported without the context of the caveats set out below:
• Data is subject to inclusions and exclusions which are documented in the Data Profile Document. This document is available from Acute Operations and has been circulated to all Hospital Groups.
• Data contains urgent, routine and surveillance/planned activity which is currently not broken down in detail, as such this includes surveillance/planned activity which may not be exceeding planned date.
• Data is still undergoing validation at Hospital and Hospital Group level. Data does not take into account local nuances at site level (Site profile developed to support understanding of same).
• The purpose of this aggregate data is to provide a National Level overview of the number of patients waiting for modalities of CT, MRI and Ultrasound.
• This report is not intended to be used for the active management of hospital diagnostics waiting list, local reports and mechanisms should continue to be used for the management of diagnostics waiting lists at hospital level.
In relation to the number of persons on diagnostic waiting lists at the end of Quarter 1 2023, the National Treatment Purchase Fund has provided the attached document which sets out waiting list data for Quarter 1 2023 for CT, MRI and Ultrasound. The HSE advises that, at present, further diagnostic scans (including cholangiopancreatography, electroencephalogram, angiogram, and bone scan), are not yet captured as part of this project.
In Q1 2023, there were a total of 250,021 patients reported on the waiting list from all sites, this represents all outpatients waiting, urgent, semi urgent, routine and planned/surveillance (where diagnostic access is planned at particular time intervals).
I have provided the Deputy with the Quarter 1, 2, 3 and 4 reports for 2022 in response to Parliamentary Question No. 320 of 30 March 2023.
250. Deputy Paul Kehoe asked the Minister for Health if he will consider sanctioning cancer treatment for an Irish patient (details supplied) overseas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20901/23]
View answerAs Minister for Health I do not have a role in sanctioning treatment for individual patients. As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
251. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of children with scoliosis and the number of children with spina bifida on waiting lists at the end of quarter 1 for each year 2019-2023, inclusive, by specialty, including the number of suspended cases, in tabular form; and the number waiting 0-6, 6-12, 12-18 and 18+ months. [20902/23]
View answerIn relation to the particular query raised, as this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.
In their direct response to similar parliamentary questions you have asked, I note that Children’s Health Ireland have advised they are unable to complete your requests given the level of work involved, and that they have offered to meet with you in regard to the matter.
252. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the number of children on paediatric orthopaedic waiting lists for at the end of quarter 1 for each year 2019-2023, inclusive, including the number of suspended cases, by specialty and by location in tabular form; the number waiting 0-6, 6-12, 12-18 and 18+ months; and the average waiting time of all relevant patients on each list. [20903/23]
View answerIt is recognised that waiting times for many scheduled appointments and procedures were too long before and have been made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Department of Health continues to work with the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to identify ways to improve access to care. On the 7th March, I published the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, which is the next stage of a new multi-annual approach to sustainably reduce and reform hospital waiting lists, and builds on the foundational work done through the short-term Waiting List Action Plan between September and December 2021, which was followed by the first full year Waiting List Action Plan for 2022, both having reversed the annual trend of rising waiting lists.
The 2023 Plan sets out the priorities to continue to address waiting lists this year. The 30 actions in the Plan, which are governed by the Waiting List Task Force, focus on delivering capacity, reforming scheduled care and enabling scheduled care reform.
For 2023, funding totalling €443 million is being allocated to tackle Waiting Lists with €363 million of this being allocated to the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, to implement longer term reforms and provide additional public and private activity to clear backlogs exacerbated during the pandemic. This will reduce hospital waiting lists by 10% in 2023 as well as continuing to significantly reduce waiting times in line with Sláintecare recommendations. The remaining €80 million of the €443 million is being targeted at various measures to alleviate community/primary care waiting lists.
With this ambitious 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, my Department, the HSE and the NTPF are taking the next steps in the multi-annual approach towards achieving our vision of a world-class public healthcare system in which everyone has timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care, where and when they need it, in line with Sláintecare reforms.
In relation to the particular query raised, the attached table, provided to my Department by the NTPF, shows the number of paediatric patients on outpatient and inpatient/day case orthopaedic waiting lists, by hospital at the end of March 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. The figures include patients on the active and suspended waiting lists. The NTPF has advised that the health system does not collect the data necessary to calculate average wait times. In particular, the time to treatment of patients who have already received their care is not collected. The NTPF collects data on patients currently on the waiting list and the average time that these patients have been waiting is provided here.
