Mr. Tony O'Brien:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation to attend the committee meeting. I am joined by a number of my colleagues. Members will know the usual suspects, although Dr. Colm Henry is not here so often. He is the national clinical adviser and group lead for acute hospitals.

The committee has had written replies on many issues, so I will not cover those. I will say a word on performance and activity against the 2015 national service plan. The number of delayed discharges had fallen from a peak of 850 on 4 January to 557 at the end of July. Additional funding of €74 million to be provided by Government via a supplementary has assisted in alleviating pressures in acute hospitals by providing additional nursing home placements. There has been a reduction in the number of patients waiting for nursing home support scheme, NHSS, funding, which is now 544, below the target range of 550 to 580.

The national service plan 2015 prioritises a reduction in waiting times for hospital care with a focus on those waiting the longest so that nobody will wait longer than 18 months at the end of June and 15 months by year end. In July 99% of adults were seen within this timeframe for an inpatient or day case procedure and 97.5% of patients were waiting less than 18 months for an outpatient appointment. Plans are being finalised to ensure that the year-end maximum wait time of 15 months is achieved.

The percentage of ECHO emergency ambulance calls responded to within 18 minutes and 59 seconds reached 77% and the response to DELTA calls reached 67% during the month of July. Some 14,476 people were in receipt of a home care package during July, 11.8% more than last year. There were 725,200 personal assistance hours provided to adults with a physical and-or sensory disability for the first seven months of the year, an increase of 67,346, or 10.2%.

As the Minister of State has mentioned, the number of children and adolescents waiting longer than 12 months for a first appointment with a child and adolescent mental health team was 300 at the end of July, which is a reduction of 146, or 32.7%, compared to 2014. In mental health services, difficulty in filling staff vacancies remains a significant challenge to providing timely and appropriate care. A number of recruitment campaigns are under way to address this.