Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Murphy for his question.

Every year there are 3.2 million outpatient attendances at our hospitals. A total of 100,000 patients have an elective inpatient procedure and 800,000 have a planned day case procedure. For those waiting to see a consultant or to have tests or surgery, the biggest worry is not the size of the list but how long they are likely to be on it.

Adding the total number of all patients waiting for treatment, regardless of whether they are waiting for surgical or diagnostic procedures or for a consultant-led outpatient appointment, and regardless of whether they were placed on the list two days, months or years ago, produces, as the Deputy says, a headline figure of more than 500,000.

Those headline figures, however, do not tell the story of the approximately 300,00 people on those lists whose wait will generally be less than six months. Nor do they illustrate the point that approximately 75% of people waiting for an outpatient appointment will not require any further treatment arising from that initial referral.

I fully acknowledge that there has been a considerable increase in demand for care in our health service in recent years. However, I want to acknowledge two examples of what has been achieved - the numbers waiting for outpatient appointments have gone down by almost 23,000 compared with May 2015, and the number of people waiting in excess of 18 months for a routine gastrointestinal endoscopy reduced from 87 to 28 within the past month.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, figures for May illustrate the absolute need for a sustained commitment to improving waiting times for patients from across the health service. Clinical need will determine that some patients require care more urgently than others and it is appropriate that patients are prioritised on this basis. After those who require critical or urgent care and in order to provide a fair and equitable service those patients waiting longest must be prioritised and the programme for partnership Government commits to continued investment of €50 million per year specifically for this purpose.

A scheduled care governance group has been established in the HSE to co-ordinate key initiatives to reduce waiting time and the number of patients awaiting treatment. Actions overseen by this group include driving greater adherence to chronological scheduling, relocation of low complexity surgical procedures to smaller hospitals and administrative and clinical validation procedures to ensure that patients are available for treatment. In addition, each hospital group has been mandated to designate a key person to lead and support waiting list management improvements to advance towards compliance with maximum waiting times.

I wish to reassure the House that the officials in my Department are working with the NTPF and the HSE in planning a designated waiting list to initiate focused endoscopy implementation this year and, on further investigation, to address urgently the waiting list for those waiting longer. There will be funding of an annual commitment of €50 million, including ring-fenced funding of more than €15 million in 2017 for the NTPF. This will allow us to balance demand and capacity in our acute hospital service and utilise primary, social and community care services to support the health of our citizens.

I refer to the Deputy's comments regarding someone having to wait for an ambulance for an hour and a half. I can assure him that I do not consider that to be appropriate. The issue needs to be examined.

See this speech in context