Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire
Ceist:860. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Health the wating list for cataracts surgery in Cork broken down by whether they are waiting by 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 months. [35519/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 13 July 2023
Ceisteanna (860)
Freagraí scríofa
It is recognised that waiting times for many scheduled appointments and procedures were too long before and have been made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Department of Health continues to work with the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to identify ways to improve access to care. On the 7th March, I published the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, which is the next stage of a new multi-annual approach to sustainably reduce and reform hospital waiting lists, and builds on the foundational work done through the short-term Waiting List Action Plan between September and December 2021, which was followed by the first full year Waiting List Action Plan for 2022, both having reversed the annual trend of rising waiting lists.
The 2023 Plan sets out the priorities to continue to address waiting lists this year. The 30 actions in the Plan, which are governed by the Waiting List Task Force, focus on delivering capacity, reforming scheduled care and enabling scheduled care reform.
For 2023, funding totalling €443 million is being allocated to tackle Waiting Lists with €363 million of this being allocated to the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, to implement longer term reforms and provide additional public and private activity to clear backlogs exacerbated during the pandemic. This will reduce hospital waiting lists by 10% in 2023 as well as continuing to significantly reduce waiting times in line with Sláintecare recommendations. The remaining €80 million of the €443 million is being targeted at various measures to alleviate community/primary care waiting lists.
With this ambitious 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, my Department, the HSE and the NTPF are taking the next steps in the multi-annual approach towards achieving our vision of a world-class public healthcare system in which everyone has timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care, where and when they need it, in line with Sláintecare reforms.
In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, the attached information, provided to my Department by the NTPF sets out the numbers waiting for a cataract procedure by area of residence in Cork in six monthly time bands.
The NTPF has advised that to preserve confidentiality and mitigate against identification or self-identification of individuals, the time-bands have been condensed to reduce the small volumes associated with the level of detail requested by the Deputy.