Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. I fully accept the huge challenges and pressures on the health service. On the question on why we cannot measure the improvements in the service, I wish to make a general point. There have been dramatic improvements in health outcomes over the past 20 or 30 years. In 2000, we were 16th in the EU league table regarding life expectancy; this year, we are number one. That is because of a combination of factors, including public health measures, in addition to the significant investment in health services, cardiology care, cancer centres, stroke centres and so on. These are having an impact but sometimes we forget about all that, which is understandable given the very high pressure on accident and emergency departments and hospitals. Coming out of Covid-19, the pressures are enormous.

Let me make another important point. Our population has increased from less than 3.5 million in the early 1990s to 5 million today. That is going to grow. The next census will be interesting. The population increase is having an impact on our services. I argue that, in recent decades, we may not have fully accounted for that in terms of the expansion of services and bed capacity.

A team has gone into University Hospital Limerick. I accept the Deputy’s points on that. With regard to the waiting list, the Minister has outlined a plan. Many people stayed away during Covid but have come back in significant numbers. Obviously, there have been delayed diagnoses and all that. An allocation of €350 million has been made to improve waiting times in 2022, on top of an annual core funding budget that is now €6 billion higher than in 2018. I take the Deputy’s point that there needs to be constant analysis of the additional funding and its connection with service increases and outcomes. There are very extensive aims. By the end of 2022, the Minister wants the number of patients on active waiting lists to be at its lowest in five years.

Every patient waiting more than six months for 15 high volume procedures will receive an offer of treatment by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, in 2022. The 15 high-volume procedures such as, for example, cataracts, cystoscopies and hip replacements, represent about a third of people currently on active waiting lists. Treatment will be offered to all 75,000 patients on the active inpatient and day patient waiting lists at the end of 2021 by the end of 2022. We will ensure 1.7 million patients will be removed from waiting lists for scheduled care in 2022. They are very challenging targets and aims. Funding has been provided in respect of that plan and also the winter plan.

That said, the Deputy's point on neurology and Parkinson's disease is well made. The neurology services in Tipperary University Hospital are a hub-and-spoke model that are part of the wider neurology service in Cork University Hospital. The HSE has advised that Tipperary University Hospital recently submitted a business case to the South/South West Hospital Group for consideration for the appointment of a consultant neurologist and a CNM2 clinical nurse specialist. I will follow up on that.

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