Good practice around the management of hospital waiting lists recommends periodic validation of waiting lists.
Validation is the process whereby hospital administration contacts patients on waiting lists at pre-planned intervals during the year to ensure that patients are ready, willing, suitable and available to attend a hospital appointment or wish to be removed.
Importantly, the validation process allows for situations where, if requested by the GP/referring clinician, patients can be reinstated back to their original place on to the Waiting List.
Last month, I approved the establishment of a Central Waiting List Validation function in the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). The establishment of the new centralised validation office will put in place protocols and practices which will ensure a standardisation of approach to the validation of all waiting lists across all hospitals.
The new Office is expected to commence validation of patient files in September.
In terms of the number of persons that have been removed from waiting lists by specialty and hospital in respect of the HSE programme to validate hospital waiting lists; the number of persons that have been restored to a waiting list following intervention by a general practitioner or other person, I have asked the HSE to respond to the Deputy directly.
