Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 January 2021
345. Deputy John Lahart asked the Minister for Health the number of public patients who have been removed from outpatient lists in 2020 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. [3057/21]
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 from the waiting list.
For a number of years validation was conducted at individual hospital level in Ireland but in 2018 the Minister for Health 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 hospitals and across IPDC and OPD waiting lists.
The NCVU advised my Department that the validation of the waiting list process, which had been suspended at the end of March due to COVID-19, recommenced on 7th August. Between 1st January and the end of December 2020 a total of 29,479 patients were removed from the Outpatient waiting list as a result of validation.
In relation to the data requested by the Deputy, the NCVU provided my Department with the document below which outlines outpatient validation figures by hospital from 1st January to end December. 2020.
