Improving waiting times for hospital procedures is a key commitment in the Programme for Government. Investing in additional capacity, including beds and theatre space; the progression of recruitment and retention of staff; the delivery of the NDP project including dedicated elective only hospitals and the ambitious reform agenda in the SláinteCare Report will improve waiting times and access for patients.
Under the Consultant's Contract 2008 and HSE guidance issued from the National Director of Acute Hospitals in September 2009, a common waiting list for treatment, diagnostics investigations, tests and procedures on an outpatient basis in public hospitals is identified. In addition, under HSE policy, private outpatients may not attend public outpatient consultant-led clinics.
In recent years, public acute hospital inpatient/daycase activity has increased on a year-on-year basis. The Inpatient/Daycase Action Plan was published earlier this year. Under this Plan the HSE will deliver 1.14million hospital operations or procedures and treat 3.3million outpatients and the NTPF will fund 22,000 Inpatient/Daycase treatments.
In addition, and under the Plan, the NTPF, working closely with the HSE, has invited all hospital groups to develop proposals to maximise the use of existing facilities and capacity. The NTPF advises it has received 70 different proposals across all hospital groups. Arising from this, from January to June this year, 3,500 offers for treatment in a public hospital have been accepted and 2,400 patients have been treated.
More broadly, my Department has placed a particular priority on performance improvement in scheduled and unscheduled care in order to improve access for patients. At the end of 2017, a new Unit was established in my Department with a remit to work with colleagues, HSE and NTPF to provide strategic direction and drive a whole-of-Department approach to performance oversight and innovation in this area. The monitoring of waiting lists is a key activity of this Unit.
I recently gave approval to extend the remit of the National Treatment Purchase Fund to collect, collate and validate national diagnostic waiting lists which will include waiting list data for CT, MRI and Ultrasound (US).
The development of an integrated waiting list solution, tailored specifically to meet the needs of our health system, is also being advanced this year.
