Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. As he will be aware, NTPF data for May 2017, the last month for which figures are available, indicates that 6,607 patients are on ophthalmology outpatient waiting lists for hospitals in Cork and a total of 1,118 are on inpatient or daycase lists. I acknowledge that waiting times are often unacceptably long and I am conscious of the burden this places on patients and their families. There is no doubt that our public hospital system is challenged in meeting the growing demand for care. In order to take action on this and do something about it, we have developed waiting list action plans for this year in the areas of inpatient-daycase and outpatient services. These plans focus on reducing the number of patients waiting 15 months or more by the end of October. Under these plans, approximately 14,200 patients have already come off the inpatient-daycase list and almost 49,000 off the outpatient lists.

Last December I granted approval to the NTPF for funding in the region of €5 million for those waiting longest for daycase treatment to ensure that in excess of 2,000 patients waiting more than 18 months for a daycase procedure will receive an offer of an appointment by the end this month.

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The NTPF has advised that to date 2,500 patient files have been transferred to private hospitals under this initiative, 631 patients have accepted an offer of treatment and 178 patients have received their procedure.

The inpatient and daycase waiting list action plan will be delivered through a combination of normal hospital activity from the HSE budget, funded under the national service plan, as well as insourcing initiatives through the NTPF in public hospitals and outsourcing initiatives in private hospitals using the €15 million of budget 2017. I assure the Deputy that ophthalmology waiting lists, including for people in Cork, will be progressed using insourcing initiatives while we will provide additional funding to public hospitals to provide more ophthalmology procedures using funding through the NTPF. I expect this will show significant progress in the coming weeks and months.

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