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Hospital Waiting Lists

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 19 June 2012

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

Ceisteanna (519, 520)

Terence Flanagan

Ceist:

610 Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Health the steps he is taking to address the issue regarding 5,000 persons who have been on hospital waiting lists for more than three to four years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29245/12]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

In relation to the Deputy's question on waiting times the Government fully accepts that waiting times for patients awaiting an elective surgical procedure are too long. One of my first priorities as Minister for Health was to set a maximum waiting time target of 12 months to be achieved by all hospitals by the end of 2011. I can confirm that 95% of hospitals achieved this target.

The immediate challenge for 2012 was to maintain the 12 month maximum waiting time target for in patient and day case procedures and then to continually improve and move to a 9 month maximum waiting time target by the end of 2012. The latest available figures from the end of April 2012 show that 99% of patients were given a scheduled treatment date within 12 months; 94% of patients were given a scheduled treatment date within 9 months; 78% of patients were given a scheduled treatment date within 6 months.

These figures demonstrate that progress is being made in relation to reducing the maximum waiting times for patients awaiting an inpatient or daycase procedure and our health service is on target to ensure that no patient has to wait more than 9 months for surgery. I can assure the Deputy that I will continue to focus on waiting lists and that when the 9 month target has been achieved later in 2012, the SDU will focus on reducing that target even further.

Terence Flanagan

Ceist:

611 Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Health the steps he is taking to address the issue regarding more than 800 persons who have been on hospital waiting lists for more than four years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29246/12]

Amharc ar fhreagra

The HSE March 2012 Report showed that a total of 158,850 patients are waiting less than 12 months for a first time outpatient attendance. A further 45,959 patients are waiting over 12 months. It is likely that these are an underestimate of those waiting as not all hospitals are currently reporting outpatient waiting time data to the HSE. The issue of Outpatient waiting lists was essentially an untended problem. The scale of the problem was unmeasured and consequently no special action was taken to deal with it. This Government intends to change that. I have instructed the Special Delivery Unit to give priority to devising methods for dealing with the issue of the Outpatient waiting lists.

Work has already commenced on the systematic and automatic collection of waiting time data, at an individual patient level in a standardised format from all hospitals providing an Outpatient service. This will be the first time that such detailed data will be available at a national level from all hospitals. The collation and analysis of Outpatient waiting time data will reveal how many patients are waiting by region, by hospital, by specialty and by Consultant. The SDU and NTPF are aiming to publish outpatient waiting time data in the near future.

The next step will be to then set a maximum waiting time target for a first Outpatient appointment. Hospitals will be held responsible and accountable for ensuring that patients are seen in Outpatients within this maximum waiting time. The SDU and the National Treatment Purchase Fund will assist hospitals in targeting their resources towards those patients who are waiting longest and ensure that they are seen, assessed and appropriately treated. In parallel with reducing the numbers of those waiting longest, the SDU will also commence work with the HSE Clinical Programmes to reform the structure, organisation and delivery of Outpatient services to ensure that the right patient is seen by the right health professional at the right time. The goal is to improve access by implementing an Outpatient Service Performance Improvement Programme that will underpin a radical transformation of how Outpatient services are delivered in Ireland.

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