Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this serious matter and for giving me an opportunity to update the House on the position. I assure colleagues that improving scoliosis services is an absolute priority for both me and the Government. I am monitoring closely - indeed, on a weekly basis - the progress being made on addressing waiting lists.

As the Deputy will be aware, the HSE, working with a number of stakeholders, is currently implementing the action plan it developed for 2017 in order to ensure that, where clinically appropriate, no patient who requires surgery will be waiting more than four months for scoliosis surgery by the end of the year. Both the director general of the HSE and the Children's Hospital Group have confirmed that they are committed to ensuring that no child will be waiting over four months by year end - contrary to what I sometimes read in newspapers, they recommitted themselves to that publicly in recent days - and they are focused on maximising all available capacity, both internally and externally, to achieve this.

Additional nurses are now in post in Crumlin and Temple Street. An additional consultant orthopaedic surgeon commenced in Crumlin earlier this month. Up to 15 September, a total of 216 scoliosis surgeries have taken place in Crumlin and Temple Street and the hospitals are committed to delivering their activity target for scoliosis services this year.

The following important fact needs to be acknowledged because there is a great deal happening. These hospitals have already equalled the number of surgeries that were undertaken in the whole of last year, with over three months still remaining this year to undertake further procedures. Crumlin and Temple Street hospitals have appointed liaison officers to support patients and families during the treatment process. In addition, a project manager and co-ordinators have been appointed to ensure the efficient and timely management of this action plan. Since February of this year patients are also being transferred for treatment to the Mater, Cappagh and Stanmore in the UK and up to 15 September, 22 surgeries were completed in these hospitals.

The HSE, as the Deputy correctly says, has also completed an international tender for paediatric spinal fusion procedures and three hospitals have been successful in their applications. To assure the Deputy, two of those hospitals, the one in Germany and one of those in the UK, have already signed their contracts and begun reviewing patient files with a view to commencing treatment in October - there will not be a wait of three months. They are telling us, as per their tenders and the contracts signed, that next month they will start treating patients whose families take up the offer of having procedures carried out in overseas hospitals.

The HSE is also developing a forecasting model to predict, on both a weekly and a monthly basis, the numbers of patients expected to have surgery by year end. This will assist the HSE and my Department in continuing to monitor the progress made in achieving the target.

To improve scoliosis services in the long term - I agree with the Deputy that sending children abroad for treatment is not what we want to do and that we need to do when we meet the four-month target in terms of a sustainable service in this country - the Children's Hospital Group established a co-design group, which includes scoliosis advocacy groups, to design a comprehensive contemporary and patient-centred approach to the delivery of scoliosis services. This has provided an important and useful forum for discussing and working through issues of concern.

I am pleased to say that the overall number of patients awaiting scoliosis procedures has been reducing throughout the year and fell from 312 in February to 252 as of 15 September. Progress is continuing in order to deliver on the HSE's four-month target by the end of 2017 in a planned, safe and sustainable way.

Criticism of the HSE is often rife in this House and is often deserved. In this instance, however, I assure the Deputy that everything that can be done by a range of staff - in the individual hospital, at Children's Hospital Group level and right up to the director general - is being done. Progress is being made. The target of reducing the waiting time to four months is ambitious and would bring us in line with the position in the NHS. The HSE has recommitted to the target. I will come back to the Deputy on the specific cohort of 68 patients she mentioned.

I am assured by the HSE that it is going to move might and mane to achieve this target by the end of the year. That is its public commitment and we expect the executive to get on and deliver it.

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