Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am afraid I do not have a specific note on orthopaedic waiting lists in Galway but I will make sure we get one and that we give the Deputy a fuller reply later. I acknowledge there are far too many people waiting far too long for the operations they need in Galway and in all parts of the country. Notwithstanding the fact we probably have 1,000 more beds than we had two years ago, more staff in our health service than ever before, a bigger budget than ever before, and more doctors than ever before working in our health service, we are, essentially, running up an escalator that is coming down at us. That is because of an increasing and ageing population with increased needs, a pandemic and a cyberattack. That has put us in a position that is not where we wanted or expected to be at this stage.

We have an ambitious plan to reduce waiting lists that has been published. The Minister for Health and I have been down the steps already with that plan. It is a €350 million plan to improve waiting times in 2022. It is the biggest waiting list plan I have seen in my time in politics by quite a distance. If it works, and a lot will depend on whether we get hit by serious waves of Covid, we should have fewer people on active waiting lists by the end of this year than at any point in the past five years. I am not saying we will get there but it will be a huge achievement if we can get to the point, by the end of the year, where waiting lists will be at a five-year low.

Every patient waiting more than six months for a high-volume procedure, which includes the vast majority of orthopaedic procedures, will be offered treatment through the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, this year. The waiting list action plan identifies 15 high-volume procedures. The commitment is made that anybody who is waiting more than six months and is clinically suitable can receive his or her care through the NTPF. That fund has confirmed it has authorised offers of treatment to almost 7,000 people and has sufficient capacity to increase what it is doing by approximately 100% by September 2022, thereby offering treatment to all 75,000 patients who are waiting for these procedures by the end of the year.

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