Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My office contacted St. Vincent's University Hospital specifically to ask what measures it will put in place to target the very specific outpatient waiting list to which the Deputy has referred. I have been informed that it is putting in place specialty-specific meetings with the specialties concerned to identify the issues. The "did not attend", DNA, rate is a serious issue in our health service and St. Vincent's hospital has established a task force to focus on reducing the DNA rate. Last year, 450,000 people did not attend scheduled hospital appointments and this has a significant burden in terms of time and cost on the Irish health service. It is anticipated that through the reduction in the number of DNAs and compliance with the one-strike national policy, the number of patients awaiting first appointment will be reduced.

The hospital has introduced a number of virtual clinics which have been a great success and have allowed specialties to increase the number of new appointments per clinic. This has assisted in reducing the new to review ratio within specialties. St. Vincent's hospital is leading in this way. The hospital has introduced urgent and routine new appointments in outpatient department clinic profiles, the pooling of referrals across a number of consultants, a project to review the discharge process and validation completed on a biannual basis to ensure the outpatient appointment list is valid. I will send the Deputy further details of these initiatives.

See this speech in context