James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In July 2011, when the special delivery unit, SDU, was set up, a total of 6,277 patients were waiting more than nine months for inpatient or day-case treatment. By the end of 2012, that number had been reduced by 98% for adults waiting over nine months for inpatient or day-case treatment and by 95% for children waiting over 20 weeks for such treatment. That is a fact. As an older lady said to me in my previous life as a GP, "The truth is not fragile, Doctor. It won’t break."

The early months of 2013, as anticipated, brought higher levels of emergency department admissions which, in turn, had a knock-on effect on scheduled care. However, the SDU, together with the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, and the HSE undertook a range of measures to address this, working closely with hospitals to analyse performance, to agree action plans and extra support as necessary and to ensure hospital capacity is being optimised.

Since August we have reduced the number of adults waiting over eight months by 78% from 6,800 on 22 August to 1,485 on 12 December. This represents a reduction from 13.5% to 3.2% in the total number of adults waiting for treatment. Similarly, we have reduced the numbers of children waiting over 20 weeks by 35%, from 883 to 576, in the same period. This represents 1.2% of the total number of children awaiting treatment. All hospitals have commenced necessary action plans to get as close as possible to the national wait time target of eight months by 31 December, and further decreases in the numbers waiting are anticipated before year end. The work continues even up to the end of the year, after Christmas, to ensure that those waiting for treatment get it and those who have been waiting the longest are treated first.

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