Mr. Simon Nugent:

Deputies asked about the role we could play in relieving the current emergency department crisis and this is part of the discussions we are having with the Department. We might work with more GPs to get them to refer patients to our emergency departments rather than to the over-congested public emergency departments. Various arrangements could be put in place to facilitate patients being routed to a private hospital rather than ending up in a long queue or on a trolley in the public system.

We were asked if the numbers we referred to in respect of elective procedures included patients referred by the NTPF. The answer is “No” because there was no NTPF activity during the year in question.

The issue of HIQA licensing was also raised. There are two different initiatives that are relevant in that context. The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health, chaired by Deputy Michael Harty, has recently been looking at the Health Information and Patient Safety Bill which will extend the remit of HIQA to the supervision of private hospitals. This is something that we have supported and looked forward to since the publication of the Madden commission report in 2009. We are absolutely supportive of that and are absolutely confident that our standards will bear scrutiny.

The other dimension is the issue of licensing. There are plans afoot to introduce patient safety licensing for the entire health system. Again, this is something we are totally open to and supportive of and we are a party to the Department of Health working group that is preparing that legislation.

A question was asked about the percentage of procedures in private hospitals that are provided to public patients. It is no more than 5% at present and any change in that percentage would depend largely on the scale of the NTPF activity.