Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is committed to improving waiting times for patients. It is the waiting time rather than the headline figure that is the Deputy's focus, and it is an important point. While recognising that the demand for acute hospital services has increased the important issue for patients is how long they wait.

The latest National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, inpatient and day case waiting list figures indicate that the total number of people on the waiting list for Tallaght Hospital is 4,415 and 92% of these, or 4,053 people, are waiting less than 18 months for their inpatient or day case appointment. The HSE has advised that most of the patients waiting over 18 months are orthopaedic and ENT patients and the hospital is working with the HSE to ensure that the majority of these patients will have their procedures scheduled or completed by year end.

In August, I asked the HSE to develop a waiting list action plan for 2016 to reduce by year end the number of patients waiting over 18 months on the inpatient and day case waiting list. Since then, approximately 6,500 patients have been removed nationally from the waiting list. Additional funding of €11.25 million has been allocated under the winter initiative to support patient treatment under this action plan. This has seen some people's procedures outsourced to other facilities when there is no capacity within a certain hospital.

Budget 2017 provides for the treatment of our longest-waiting patients. A sum of €20 million is being allocated to the NTPF in 2017, rising to €55 million in 2018. I met the chair and CEO of the NTPF last Tuesday and I have granted approval to its proposal which outlines the use of a first tranche of funding, in the region of €5 million, for an initiative focusing on day case procedures. I will shortly ask the HSE to develop a waiting list action plan for 2017 working collaboratively with the NTPF to address inpatient, day case and outpatient waiting times, including at Tallaght Hospital. We finally have ring-fenced funding for waiting list initiatives. Such funding was lacking in recent years.

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