Patient Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 11 July 2019

Thursday, 11 July 2019

Ceisteanna (605)

Stephen Donnelly

Ceist:

605. Deputy Stephen Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the number of public patients removed from outpatient lists in to date in 2019 as a result of a validation exercise and not as a result of having an appointment with a consultant for each public and voluntary hospital in tabular form. [30999/19]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Health

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 from the list. The validation of waiting lists can help provide clean, accurate, up to date waiting list data which reflects the true demand for hospital services.

For a number of years validation was conducted at individual hospital level in Ireland but this function was centralised by the Minister through the establishment of a National Centralised Validation Unit (NCVU) in the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) in September 2018.

Following engagement with public hospitals, the NCVU commenced issuing waiting list validation correspondence on the 2nd November 2018. The core aim of the Validation Unit is to write to all patients waiting more than 6 months for hospital operations and procedures and all patients waiting more than 9 months for an outpatient procedure. The Unit’s target is to validate 220,000 patients nationally on Inpatient, Day Case and Outpatient waiting lists.

The NTPF has advised that as of the 30th June 2019, a total of 62 hospitals nationally had been validated by the NCVU, 28 for Inpatient, Day Case waiting lists, and 34 for Outpatient waiting lists. The outstanding hospitals have engaged with the NTPF and have been allocated a time slot for validation in the next 3-6 months.

In relation to the particular question raised by the Deputy, the NTPF advises that based on the Outpatient Validation exercise from 1st of January until the 5th of July, a total of 17,601 patients have been removed from the national Outpatient waiting list. The following table provides a breakdown of the validation figures by hospital.

Name of Hospital & Group:	No. of patients removed due to validation from 1st January to 5th July 2019:
	IEHG
Mater Misericordiae Hospital	92
St Vincent's Hospital	866
Midland Regional Hospital Mullingar	452
St Luke's General Hospital Kilkenny	109
Wexford General Hospital	41
Our Lady's Hospital Navan	592
St Columcille's Hospital	594
St Michael's Hospital	104
Cappagh Orthopaedic Hospital	158
Royal Victoria Eye & Ear Hospital	683
Total:	3691
	RCSI
Beaumont Hospital	0
Connolly Hospital	0
Our Lady's of Lourdes Drogheda	0
Louth County Hospital	0
Cavan & Monaghan Hospitals	0
The Rotunda Maternity Hospital	743
Total:	743
	DMHG
St James Hospital	2520
Tallaght Hospital (AMNCH)	535
Midland Regional Tullamore Hospital	2209
Naas General Hospital	295
Midland Regional Portlaoise Hospital	39
Total:	5598
	ULHG
University Hospital Limerick	1011
Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Ennis	55
Nenagh Hospital	12
Croom Hospital	468
St John's Hospital	49
Total:	1595
	SSWG
Cork University Hospital	2116
University Hospital Waterford	176
University Hospital Kerry	1068
Mercy University Hospital	526
South Tipperary General Hospital	0
South Infirmary Victoria Hospital	275
Bantry General Hospital	0
Mallow General Hospital	97
Total:	4258
	Saolta Hospital Group
University Hospital Galway	0
Sligo University Hospital	0
Letterkenny University Hospital/	660
Mayo University Hospital	576
Portiuncula Hospital	305
Roscommon University Hospital	175
Total:	1716
	Children's Hospital Group
Crumlin Children's Hospital	0
Temple Street Children's Hospital	0
Tallaght Children's Hospital	0
Total:	0
Grand Total:	17601