Mr. Liam Woods:

During the months of the first phase of the pandemic we had a significant problem with endoscopy. The urgent cases, of which there are normally no breaches on a monthly basis, went up to 1,500 breaches in the month of April. That reduced to 1,000 and is now back to 500 so the hospitals are putting a lot of energy into prioritising urgent scopes. The challenge is that in the Covid-19 environment much greater caution is required in terms of undertaking scopes and so the time to complete each scope is greater. There is a productivity issue around that. It ties back to what the Deputy was saying earlier. We also need more facility for scopes and that is something we are working on. We are aware of that. It is recovering somewhat.

The challenge and the international experience is that, unfortunately, it is likely that in total volume terms we will do well to get 70% or 75% of the previous volume. We will have a challenge there. We are aware of it and we are working at it. I believe the priority scopes, both for bowel screening and by referral, will come back on track over time where we will see difficulties in the routine and surveillance scopes. That is something we will have to work at further.