Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 38 - Health

9:30 am

Mr. Robert Watt:

Just let me finish the point. The people who are waiting too long probably account for about 5% or 6% of the overall delivery in any given year. The question then is how can we increase capacity and activity to ensure that people are not waiting longer than ten or 12 weeks. That involves an enhancement of capacity. Against the enhancement of capacity, there are more people every year incoming and flowing on to the list looking for care. This is primarily, but not exclusively, because of the demographic changes and demographic structure in society. There are, therefore, a number of different challenges. How can we increase productivity and activity in the public system and how can we access the private system to get more activity because the private system has volume and capacity which we can access? That is a real challenge for us.

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