James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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Question 157: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her views on the fact that over 46,000 patients are on hospital waiting lists here; that this figure will increase significantly as a result of planned bed and theatre closures; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35144/10]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Independent)
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The National Treatment Purchase Fund is responsible for the collation and reporting of national waiting list data and patients are placed on the national list only after they have been waiting three months. This is because many persons actually receive their treatment within three months and, in some cases, with little or no waiting. It is not appropriate to classify these patients as "awaiting treatment" in the same way as those who have been waiting for several months. The most recent figures relate to September 2010 and indicate that the number of patients waiting for over three months was 19,865. It is not correct, therefore, to conclude that there are over 46,000 patients on waiting lists.

It is more relevant to measure waiting times rather than the numbers of patients involved and enormous progress has been made in recent years in reducing average waiting times. The median waiting time for medical and surgical patients is now 2.6 months. This is a very significant reduction from an average of between two and five years when the NTPF was established in 2002. There remain a relatively small number of patients who have been waiting for longer than 12 months for treatment and I have emphasised to both the HSE and the NTPF the need for them to continue to work together to ensure that these patients are afforded treatment without further delay.

I do not accept that measures necessary to ensure that public hospitals operate within their budgets for the year will result in significant increases in waiting lists. The HSE's National Service Plan 2010 commits to a range of measures to ensure that services are delivered more efficiently, including carrying out an increased proportion of surgery on a day basis, increasing rates of day-of-surgery admission and working to reduce average length of stay, as a result of which the level of activity in the system is projected to be broadly on a par with that achieved in 2009.