Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 March 2020
708. Deputy Stephen Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the number of public patients removed from outpatient lists 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. [3400/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn order to ensure the accuracy of waiting lists, 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. For a number of years validation was conducted at individual hospital level in Ireland but in 2018, I approved the establishment of the National Centralised Validation Unit (NCVU) within the NTPF. The establishment of a centralised function has facilitated the introduction of a standardised approach to validation of waiting lists across all hospitals and across IPDC and OPD waiting lists.
The NCVU advises that in 2019, they completed 269 validation cycles, across 37 hospitals, resulting in 7,651 patients being removed from the Inpatient/Day Case waiting list and 45,270 from the Outpatient waiting lists.
In relation to the data requested by the Deputy, the NCVU provided the attached document which outlines outpatient validation figures by hospital.
