Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Healy-Rae for asking this question, which he has raised with me and takes very seriously, about people waiting for cataract operations. I wish to acknowledge that ophthalmology waiting times in the south-south west hospital group are often unacceptably long. I am conscious, as the Deputy has made clear to me, of the adverse impact that can have on somebody's life.

Reducing waiting times for the longest-waiting patients is one of our key priorities. As a result of that, we allocated in the budget €20 million to the NTPF. We have also ring-fenced a further €55 million for 2018. This will mean more procedures for more patients.

In December 2016, I granted approval to the National Treatment Purchase Fund to dedicate €5 million to a day case waiting list initiative with the aim of ensuring that no patient will be waiting longer than 18 months for a day case procedure by 30 June 2017. This will mean that in excess of 2,000 day case procedures will be managed through this process and patients today are already receiving their appointments for such procedures. Based on his question, the Deputy will be glad to know that long-waiting ophthalmology patients are a core group that will receive treatment under this initiative.

In order to reduce the numbers of long-waiting patients, I asked the HSE to develop action plans for 2017 in the areas of inpatient day cases, scoliosis and outpatient services. These plans have now been finalised and I expect the HSE to get on with implementing them.

The HSE is currently finalising the report of the primary care eye services review, which aims to reorganise primary eye care services with an increased emphasis on maximising delivery of a comprehensive service in primary care. I meet a lot of people who say that more of this can be done in the community. This thereby creates capacity in hospitals to provide more complex ophthalmology services.

The HSE has advised that the south-south west hospital group is currently examining solutions for ophthalmology services across the group, including increasing the number of ophthalmic physicians in the group, which will obviously have a further positive impact. We intend to increase the number of physicians. We are seeing patients get cataract appointments now through the NTPF. We are about to receive the final report of primary care eye services review, which looks at what more we can do in the community. I know this is a very important issue in Kerry and a very important issue for the Deputy.

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