Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 380: To ask the Minister for Health and Children his views on whether the National Treatment Purchase Fund offers value for money and is effective in reducing waiting time for patients on public hospital waiting lists; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12525/11]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The National Treatment Purchase Fund is responsible for arranging care for those patients who have been waiting longest for hospital treatment and for the negotiation, on behalf of the HSE, of nursing home prices under the Nursing Homes Support Scheme. The NTPF has also instituted standard national arrangements for the collection and reporting of waiting lists across 44 hospitals, through the Patient Treatment Register (PTR).

In relation to value for money, the Comptroller and Auditor General's reports for 2008 and 2009 concluded that, relative to the casemix benchmark, procedures purchased from private hospitals by the NTPF generally cost less than those carried out in the publicly-funded system.

I intend to set up a Special Delivery Unit, which will focus on reducing unacceptable waiting times for patients, and I am happy to confirm that the Government is on target to establish the Unit in its first hundred days. Extensive work is being undertaken in designing the Unit, which will be modelled in part on the successful special delivery unit in Northern Ireland.