Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 15 May 2019
173. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for Health the steps he is taking to reduce eye care outpatient waiting lists and lengthy waits for cataract surgery nationally significantly in 2019; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21017/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraBudget 2019 announced that the Government had further increased investment in tackling waiting lists, with funding to the NTPF increasing from €55 million in 2018 to €75 million in 2019. The joint Department of Health, HSE, and NTPF Scheduled Care Access Plan 2019 was published in March.
Under the Plan the HSE, in line with the National Service Plan, will deliver 1.155 million elective inpatient and day case discharges at a value of €1.4 billion in 2019. The Scheduled Care Access Plan includes:
- detailed plans from the NTPF to fund 25,000 IPDC treatments, 5,000 Gastro Intestinal Scopes and 40,000 outpatient first appointments.
- Projections by year end to reduce the overall number of patients on the waiting list (excluding GI scopes) from just over 70,200 in Dec 2018 to under 60,000;
- Within this overall reduction the number of patients waiting longer than 3 months will reduce from 40,200 at the end of 2018 to 31,000 by year end.
It is also projected that for ten identified high volume procedures, including cataracts, all clinically suitable patients waiting more than 6 months will be offered treatment in 2019. These 10 procedures account for over a third of the active inpatient day case waiting list and represent 60% of NTPF planned activity in 2019.
In addition, a key element of the 2019 Plan is the stabilisation of the Outpatient Waiting List which remains a significant challenge. The Scheduled Care Access Plan 2019 includes a target that the number of patients waiting for a first Outpatient appointment will fall from over 516,000 at the end of 2018 to under 509,000.
Under the Plan the HSE, in line with the National Service Plan, will aim to deliver 3.3 million outpatient appointments, of which approximately 1 million will be first appointments and the NTPF will deliver 40,000 first Outpatient appointments.
The NTPF advise that over recent months they have placed a particular focus on engaging with hospital groups and individual hospitals to identify outpatient waiting list proposals. While the NTPF have already approved over 38,000 outpatient appointments, they advise that the impact of these initiatives may not be seen until the end of the year. Approximately 75% of appointments approved relate to 4 high-volume specialties, including Ophthalmology.
The Scheduled Care Access Plan is a key pillar of the project plan to deliver on the Ministerial and Department’s 2019 Priority to improve Acute Hospital Waiting Times. The governance and oversight structures to oversee NTPF and HSE performance in the delivery against the targets set out in the Plan has been expanded to include a Working Group whose remit is to develop initiatives aimed at improving access for patients to scheduled care in a number of high volume specialties including Ophthalmology.
At the end of July 2017, there were 10,024 people waiting for a cataract procedure. Cataracts were one of the specialties targeted by the NTPF under the Inpatient Day Case Access Plan 2018 and by the end December 2018, the numbers waiting had fallen to 6,440, a reduction of 36%. There were 6151 patients waiting for a Cataract procedure at the end of April 2019, with 582 of those waiting over 9 months. This represents a reduction of 3,789 or 87% when compared to July 2017, when there were 4,371 patients waiting over 9 months for a cataract operation.
