Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There does, there will be and there are. That is seen by the increased level of investment in the health service, which is being translated as we speak into a HSE service plan which will see more funding going into the health service in 2017 than in 2016, which is more funding than ever before. I am not suggesting in any way, shape or form that we can rectify all of the challenges and issues in one budget or in one short period of time. We must have context when we quote figures. When a Minister quotes statistics, people will say do not drown us in statistics, and that is a valid point, but 80% of people in Cork are waiting fewer than 52 weeks for an appointment, the position is not acceptable for the 20% but let us not suggest that everybody is waiting over 12 months or over 18 months. People are clinically prioritised. The Deputy spoke about important issues like cancer and clinical decisions are made in regard to prioritisation of lists, which is important.

The South-South West Hospital Group, which is the group for Cork, has advised me that both it and Cork's hospital management teams continue to work together on solutions to reduce outpatients waiting lists. Clinical capacity is being increased and managed by different initiatives such as extra consultant clinics, musculoskeletal physiotherapy clinics, chronological booking to make sure people who are waiting the longest are being seen first, an ongoing validation of waiting lists, and an IT solution to improve communication with patients and help reduce the extraordinarily high rate of "do not attends" where people have an outpatient appointment and do not attend. We had 400,000 last year, which is a massive number. This is currently at pilot stage in Cork; it will commence this month to try to reduce the number of "do not attends". The South-South West Hospital Group also has a dedicated scheduled care manager who co-ordinates and manages all waiting lists across the hospital group in co-ordination with hospital managers. I take seriously the points Deputy Aindrias Moynihan has raised. I have already been in Cork University Hospital but I specifically want to visit it with a focus on its maternity and gynaecological services, and I will do that in the coming weeks.

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