Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I will take this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. The National Treatment Purchase Fund was established as a statutory body in May 2004 to treat public patients who are longest on surgical inpatient waiting lists. Access to treatment under the auspices of the NTPF is open to patients who are waiting more than three months on a surgical waiting list and who may qualify for treatment through it. In general, non-surgical treatment does not qualify for consideration under the fund. It is open to the patient, or anyone acting on his or her behalf, to contact the fund directly in relation to each case. The NTPF operates a nationwide lo-call line for this purpose. A person may also be referred to the fund through the NTPF liaison officer attached to the hospital.

The NTPF to date has arranged treatment for 100,000 people. The 100,000 patients are a combination of approximately 78,000 inpatients and 22,000 outpatients. The NTPF has consistently increased the number of patients for whom it has arranged treatment annually and is on target to do so again in 2008. The specialties in which the highest numbers have been treated are ophthalmology, ENT, orthopaedics and plastic surgery. The annual allocation to the fund has been increased from €5 million in 2002 to €100.4 million for 2008.

The NTPF compiles the national patient treatment register which details the public patients waiting for treatment in public hospitals based on information supplied by the hospitals. The NTPF has advised that for the most common procedures the median waiting time for surgery in a public hospital is now down to two to four months for adults and two to five months for children.

Significant investment in recent years in Letterkenny General Hospital has allowed for key service developments including a new 29 bedded modular ward which opened in 2007. The HSE advises that this has allowed the day services unit at the hospital to return to providing a dedicated elective service, which has improved the hospital's ability to see and treat outpatients, day cases and inpatients. Since the opening of these extra beds and the protection of the day unit, the HSE has advised that the hospital has reduced the number of patients waiting over 12 months for admission. The executive advises that this will continue to reduce waiting times for surgery at the hospital over the coming year.

The HSE advises that plans are at an advanced stage for an emergency department with an integrated medical assessment unit and three acute inpatient wards. It also advises that it is planned to go to tender on this project in the current year.

The executive has advised that interim measures have been put in place to address pressures which were resulting in increasing deferral of elective admissions. This involved the need to accommodate emergency admissions in the hospital's day surgery unit and in the outpatient department waiting room.

The new short stay ward will provide a facility to accommodate those increasing emergency admissions and obviate the need to use the day surgery and outpatient areas whilst awaiting the development of the new emergency department and accompanying wards. As a result, the clinicians in the hospital will be able to resume normal elective activity levels and the HSE has indicated that this will improve access times for treatment at the hospital.

The NTPF has indicated that the treatment register shows that there are currently 1,266 surgical patients over three months on inpatient waiting lists at Letterkenny General Hospital. Of this number, some 400 patients have been waiting over twelve months for their operation. The NTPF indicates that Letterkenny General Hospital is one of a small number of hospitals in this situation. The Minister for Health and Children has asked the fund to give urgent attention to this matter in 2008.

I understand that the NTPF has indicated to Letterkenny General Hospital that it is prepared to facilitate treatment for these 400 patients quickly, if they are appropriately referred under the scheme. The HSE has advised that Letterkenny General Hospital is currently working with the NTPF to refer the maximum number of patients interested in treatment through the fund.