Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising this important matter and for giving me the opportunity to address Dáil Éireann this afternoon.

One thing the programme last night showed is that I am far from the first Minister for Health to try to address the issue of waiting lists. I recognise it is an issue of great concern to all parties and none in this House and I continue to believe that improving our health service requires an all-party collective effort. However, what the programme last night really brought home is the genuine pain and suffering of patients who are waiting far too long for treatment and the impact this has on their lives and on the lives of their families.

I said I was ashamed. That was not just a word; I meant it. It is simply wrong. How can anyone watching that programme not be ashamed? It is not good enough for me to just be sorry or for me to say we feel ashamed. What are we going to do about it? That is why I began unapologetically targeting resources at the specialties with particularly long waiting lists, such as scoliosis and orthopaedics, and at treating those patients waiting the longest - something that did not always happen.

More that 50 additional children and teenagers with scoliosis were treated with funding made available from the winter initiative but I recognise that this has not been enough for children such as Megan, Kira and Darragh. However, the additional investment achieved progress for those children and young people waiting over 18 months, which is obviously a completely inexcusable length of time for children with this condition to continue to wait. We also made progress on the overall waiting list of over 18 months. This was done in 2016 with limited additional funding and in a limited timeframe. Now, we must do more and I will make sure we do more.

I have just come from a meeting with the CEO of Crumlin children's hospital and the CEO of the Children's Hospital Group and the director of nursing. I am pleased to inform the House that from April, the new theatre built for the purpose of scoliosis will open. This will see 194 spinal procedures carried out in Crumlin - significantly more than last year - and will see significant reductions in waiting lists for scoliosis and waiting times for scoliosis patients. At the end of this month, I will receive from the HSE and the Children's Hospital Group an action plan for scoliosis and I will engage with all parties and none in this House and with advocacy groups in respect of that. In addition, by June we will have an additional orthopaedic post filled within Crumlin.

Therefore, we are responding to what we saw last night, which was unacceptable and needs to be addressed. Everybody in this House highlighted the many issues in the programme last night that need to be addressed. The issue of scoliosis in our children and the length of time they are waiting is not acceptable. That theatre will open in April as a result of the nurse recruitment, an extra orthopaedic post will be in place by June and we will see at least 194 procedures carried out.

In addition, we will have a priority initiative on scoliosis as part of the HSE 2017 waiting list action plan with the aim of every child being treated within the clinical timeframe and if that means outsourcing, that is what we will do as well. We will eliminate the day-case waiting list of over 18 months by the end of June through the NTPF. This will see more than 2,000 patients begin to receive their treatment from March.

The HSE action plan, which I will receive at the end of this month, will work in conjunction with the NTPF to utilise capacity within the private sector and maximise capacity and co-ordination within and between hospital groups to treat the patients waiting the longest. This will be supported by a further €10 million fund for the NTPF.

I expect the action plan combining these measures to be complete by the end of this month and for patients to begin to be treated under it by March.

These measures are to support us moving towards a position where no patient waits for any procedure or any hospital appointment longer than 15 months by the end of October, which still is too long but constitutes progress.

I have also today directed separately that the NTPF will audit the practices in the hospitals highlighted by the individual cases featured in the programme last night. It is important that lessons are learnt and that the NTPF carries out its audit function to see exactly how each of those cases was dealt with in each of the hospitals. The NTPF is already undertaking a review of best international practice on waiting list data publication models and I look forward to that work being concluded.

Let me be clear. When people ask about these waiting lists, this is the waiting list model that has been in place since 2002 under six Ministers for Health and five successive Governments. It did not alter and it did not change. Perhaps I say things are "unacceptable" too much but I say it because I mean it and we will work to fix this.

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