Results 13,201-13,220 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Written Answers — Department of Health: Blood Donations (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: The IBTS has a schools information pack with leaflets, videos and CD content which it distributes to secondary schools to promote blood donation. The IBTS is currently reviewing this material with several parties, including input from Transition Year students. It is envisaged that this material will form part of a proposal to the Department of Education and Skills to...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Waiting Lists (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: The National Waiting List Management Policy, A standardised approach to managing scheduled care treatment for in-patient, day case and planned procedures, January 2014,has been developed to ensure that all administrative, managerial and clinical staff follow an agreed national minimum standard for the management and administration of waiting lists for scheduled care. This policy, which has...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Cancer Screening Programmes (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: Planning for the age extension of BreastCheck to 65 - 69 year olds is underway and screening of the extended cohort will commence in Quarter 4 of 2015. The additional eligible population is approximately 100,000 and, when fully implemented, 540,000 women will be included in the BreastCheck Programme. The age extension will be implemented on an incremental basis, in line with the capacity...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Medicinal Products Prices (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: In 2012 my Department and the HSE entered into an Agreement with the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association to deliver savings of over €400m. Over half of the savings to be delivered - €210m - were to be reinvested by the State into the provision of new and innovative drugs. The State's investment in new drugs over the three-year lifetime of the Agreement is likely to...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Health Insurance (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: VHI's application for authorisation was submitted to the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) on 16 May 2014. VHI continues to engage closely with the CBI in respect of its application, and my Department has also provided a number of clarifications to the Bank to assist it in its understanding of the interaction between the private health insurance market and the health system. Any capital...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Services (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: As this is a service matter, I have asked the HSE to respond to you directly. If you have not received a reply from the HSE within 15 working days please contact my Private Office and my officials will follow the matter up.

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Equipment (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: Safety is of paramount importance to the BreastCheck programme, which has high quality control standards in place for the management of its 30 screening mammography machines. These are set out in the Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Mammography Screening and are consistent with those of the European Reference Organisation for Quality Assured Breast Screening and Diagnostic Services...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Staff Data (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: I have asked the HSE to respond to the Deputy directly on the matter. If you have not received a reply from the HSE within 15 working days, please contact my Private Office and they will follow up the matter with them.

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Appointments Administration (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: The scheduling of appointments for patients is a matter for the hospital to which the patient has been referred. Should a patient's general practitioner consider that the patient's condition warrants an earlier appointment, he or she would be in the best position to take the matter up with the consultant and hospital involved. In relation to the particular query raised, as this is a service...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Patient Transport (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: As this is a service matter, I have asked the HSE to respond to you directly. If you have not received a reply from the HSE within 15 working days please contact my Private Office and my officials will follow the matter up.

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Services (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: With regard to specific complaints in relation to experiences of individuals in our hospitals, there is a formal complaints policy, entitled “Your Service Your Say”,details of which are on the HSE website, at:. In accordance with this procedure, a complaint must be made in the first instance to the hospital in which the incident causing the complaint occurred. If an...

Written Answers — Department of Health: Departmental Staff Data (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: There are no staff from my Department or agencies under the aegis of my Department working out of Government Buildings at Abbeyleix Road, Portlaoise, Co. Laois.

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the select sub-committee today on the revised Estimates for 2015 for my Department - Vote 38. I very much welcome the new emphasis on performance in these discussions. The briefing provided to the Deputies this year concentrates on the three particular service areas in which the committee has expressed a particular interest - primary care...

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: I thank Deputies for their contributions and will do my best to cover them. As of 8 a.m. this morning, the position on emergency department overcrowding is that there were 372 patients on trolleys in emergency departments or on wards. Of those, 183 had been on trolleys for more than nine hours. As such, it is a significant improvement on the position earlier in the week. That ranges of...

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: So people say. Obviously, I would like to have more money to address waiting times. We do not have it but I would love to get it. If I did have it, we would be able to spend it on reducing waiting times. I am not sure I would use the NTPF mechanism, as the Deputy suggests. What that involves is essentially paying private hospitals to do the work of the public sector. There may be a role...

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: When consultants are doing private work they are not dealing with waiting lists. They are treating private patients who are not on waiting lists - unless the Government pays for public patients to go private, which has been done in the past. Deputy Ó Caoláin made a number of very fair points. He said we needed more nurses, and I agree with him. We had 500 more nurses last year...

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: We undertake individual negotiations, by and large, with the individual companies. The third area in which we seek drug savings is, as Deputy Ó Caoláin mentioned, the issue of preferred drugs and the medicines management programme. GPs can prescribe alternatives to commonly used medicines. For example, in the case of medicines for the treatment of ulcers, there is already an...

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy cannot have one.

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: Under the changes made at the end of last year, one does not necessarily need to have a medical card to qualify for aids and appliances. That does not mean, however, that everyone is automatically entitled to aids and appliances. In the past a medical card was the gateway to aids and appliances. There used to be very strange cases where those who needed a prosthesis but who did not want a...

Committee on Health and Children: Select Sub-Committee on Health: Estimates for Public Services 2015
Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (5 Feb 2015)

Leo Varadkar: I do not believe so.