Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 March 2020
777. Deputy Stephen Donnelly asked the Minister for Health the number of children under 18 years of age waiting for a diagnostic scan at the end of February 2020 or the latest date available by hospital group; and the number waiting less than four months, four to 12 months and more than 12 months, in tabular form. [3516/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe HSE advises that a pilot project commenced in 2016 by the HSE Acute Hospitals Division to progress the collection of national radiology waiting list data. The project has been supported by the Radiology Clinical Care Programme and has involved key stakeholders across the system including the National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) Team, Hospital Groups, and the support of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) for data collection and data management expertise
The NTPF has advised my Department that it does not currently record the personal data of any of the patients on the Diagnostics waiting list as the purpose of this aggregate data is to provide a National Level overview of the number of patients waiting for modalities of CT, MR and US. This report is not intended to be used for the active management of hospital diagnostics waiting lists - local reports and mechanisms should continue to be used for the management of diagnostics waiting lists at hospital level.
For this reason, the NTPF is unable to identify whether patients on the Diagnostics waiting list are over or under 18 years of age.
