Dinny McGinley (Donegal South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 51: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she is satisfied with the Health Service Executive collection and reporting of outpatient waiting lists; the action she will take to improve outpatient reporting and communication between hospitals and general practitioners on outpatient waiting lists; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20284/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The improvement of access to outpatient services, which are a key access point to the acute hospital system and involve over three million attendances annually, is a priority for the health service. It is essential that people are afforded timely access to outpatient services when they require them and that these services function effectively as part of an integrated acute hospital and primary care system.

The HSE is engaged in a number of measures to improve access to and the efficiency of outpatient services. The principal aims of the National Outpatient Department Service Improvement Programme are to:

Increase the number of new patients seen

Reduce the numbers who do not attend for scheduled appointments (DNAs)

Reduce waiting times for patients and

Ensure that all patients are seen within 30 minutes of their appointment time.

The HSE's 2010 National Service Plan contains performance targets for OPD services of a 1:2 new-to-return ratio and a non-attendance rate of not more than 10%. In its Service Plan, at my request, the HSE has also committed to work on the development of new indicators, in conjunction with National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), to measure median waiting time from:

GP referral to attendance at outpatient

Outpatient attendance to admission where this is indicated, and

GP referral to hospital admission.

Outpatient waiting list data is currently collected primarily at individual hospital level. The HSE is therefore working to develop a system which, on a national basis, will provide standardised and comparable national outpatient waiting list data by hospital and specialty. The availability of such information will facilitate clinicians and health service managers in further improving the performance of outpatient services.