Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 80: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her policy regarding the administration of the National Treatment Purchase Fund pilot scheme for 2010 whereby patients are provided with first time access to orthopaedic consultants at outpatient level; if the scheme covers such appointments in every Health Service Executive area; if not, the reason for same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [25733/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The NTPF has operated an outpatient department (OPD) pilot programme since 2005. The objective of the outpatient programme is to reduce waiting times for outpatient consultations for an agreed volume of public patients on public hospital waiting lists and to operate this programme over a number of surgical and medical specialties. All Health Service Executive regions are participating in the scheme. During 2010, it is planned that the NTPF will offer 8,000 first time appointments, of which 1,800 will be allocated to orthopaedic patients. The remainder of appointments will be allocated to ENT, rheumatology, dermatology, neurology, opthalmology and general surgery.

Since the launch of the pilot programme, almost 90,000 people have received offers of specialist appointments and of these approx 44,000 have taken up the offer. The HSE is engaged in a number of measures to improve access to and the efficiency of outpatient services. 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 is committed to developing new indicators, in conjunction with the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). These will 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.