Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Question 181: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her plans to ease the backlog that has developed in the National Treatment Purchase Fund which has led to more than 2,000 patients waiting for more than a year for surgery and several hundred more waiting up to two years under the scheme. [31906/08]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
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I have asked the National Treatment Purchase Fund, in conjunction with the Health Service Executive, to address the issue of persons waiting for longer than 12 months for hospital treatment as a matter of priority during 2008. I regard it as unacceptable that anyone should have to wait for so long when an alternative pathway to treatment is possible and available through the NTPF. The NTPF has informed my Department that at the end of August 2008 the total number of surgical patients over a year on hospital waiting lists was 1,831. This represents a very significant improvement on the position as at the end of August 2007, when the total number waiting over 12 months was 4,614. The Fund has also indicated that it is confident that a further reduction will be achieved by the end of this year.

Waiting times have been falling significantly since the setting up of the NTPF. The average median wait time for a procedure via the Fund is now 3.2 months. Indeed, for 19 of the 20 most common adult surgical operations, patients are treated within two to five months while children, for the 10 most common paediatric surgical procedures, also receive their treatment within two to five months.