I acknowledge that waiting times are often unacceptably long and I am conscious of the burden that this places on patients and their families.
Reducing waiting times for the longest waiting patients is one of this Government's key priorities.
Consequently, Budget 2017 allocated €20 million to the NTPF, rising to €55 million in 2018.
In order to reduce the numbers of long-waiting patients, I asked the HSE to develop Waiting List Action Plans for 2017 in the areas of Inpatient/Daycase, Scoliosis and Outpatient Services. These plans have now been finalised and their implementation is ongoing.
It is expected that the Inpatient/Daycase and Outpatient Plans will considerably reduce the number of patients waiting 15 months or more for inpatient and daycase treatment or for an outpatient appointment by the end of October.
The Scoliosis Action Plan aims to ensure that no patient is waiting more than four months by the end of 2017. Under these Plans, since early February, over 14,200 patients have come off the Inpatient/Daycase Waiting List and nearly 49,000 patients have come off the Outpatient Waiting List.
In addition, last December I granted approval to the NTPF for the first tranche of funding in the region of €5m, for an initiative focused on those waiting longest for Daycase treatment with a view to ensuring that in excess of 2,000 patients waiting more than 18 months for a daycase procedure will have received an offer of an appointment for their procedure by the end of June. The NTPF has advised that to date over 2,500 patients files have been transferred to private hospitals under this initiative, 631 patients have accepted an offer of treatment in a private hospital and that over 178 patients have received their procedure.
The inpatient/daycase Waiting List Action Plan will be delivered through a combination of normal hospital, National Service Plan-funded activity, as well as insourcing and outsourcing initiatives using the €15m of Budget 2017.
Under insourcing, initiatives to address orthopaedic and ophthalmology waiting lists will be progressed.
