Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was just checking.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 14 together.

I thank Deputy MacSharry and Deputy O'Callaghan for their questions on waiting times at Sligo University Hospital and the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital.

I acknowledge that waiting times are often unacceptably long and I am conscious of the burden this can place on patients and their families. Reducing waiting times for those on the list longest is one of our key priorities. Consequently, €20 million - rising to €55 million in 2018 - was allocated to the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, in budget 2017. In order to reduce the number of those waiting longest, I asked the HSE to develop waiting list action plans for 2017 in the areas of inpatient-day cases, scoliosis and outpatient services. The inpatient-day case action plan is being delivered through a combination of normal hospital activity and insourcing and outsourcing initiatives utilising NTPF funding. Since early February, almost 24,000 patients have come off the inpatient-day case waiting list, 84,000 have come off the outpatient waiting list and 249 children have received necessary scoliosis procedures.

In the context of Sligo University Hospital, I acknowledge the point Deputy MacSharry makes about too many patients waiting too long for outpatient appointments. I will highlight some progress being made as a result of the investment that has been made. Out of a total of 11,833 people on the outpatient waiting list at Sligo University Hospital, 567 - 4.7% of the overall number - have been waiting over 18 months. On inpatient cases, 3,412 people are waiting and 228 patients have been waiting over 18 months, which is 6% of the total list. Not everybody is waiting a long period of time and I want to highlight that many people are being seen much more quickly.

There are still too many people waiting too long. We saw in last month's NTPF figures that there is beginning to be a reduction in the length of time relating to and the total number of people on our inpatient-day case waiting list. We hope and expect to see progress on our outpatient waiting list. We have now developed a new strategy for the design of integrated outpatient services. This strategy seeks to improve waiting times for outpatient services by restructuring referral pathways and utilising technology to improve service delivery. I have also asked the HSE to put in place capacity to ensure the validation accuracy of our outpatient waiting list which is something many of us come across in our constituency clinics.

On the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, which is the subject of Deputy O'Callaghan's question, I opened a new theatre there in July which will enable over 1,000 additional cataract procedures to be carried out this year and to have no waiting lists for cataract procedures at the hospital by the end of 2018, and no waiting lists for cataract procedures within the hospital group by the end of 2019. On outpatient appointments, when I visited the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital, those with whom I spoke highlighted their view, which I share, that the primary care eye service review, which was published in the past number of months, provides a way forward whereby a number of these procedures and a number of outpatient appointments will actually take place in primary care. This is something I hope to be able to act on in the context of the HSE service plan for 2018 and the Estimates discussions in which I am currently engaged.

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