Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 18: To ask the Minister for Health the action he will take to address the excessive waiting list for orthopaedic treatment at Cork University Hospital; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17908/11]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The current situation in relation to the waiting lists for orthopaedic services in Cork University Hospital is totally unacceptable. Patients need a service that is timely and effective.

There are a number of initiatives underway in HSE South to alleviate this problem.

Additional Consultant Posts

In the HSE South, there are 5 permanent consultant orthopaedic surgeons in post in the trauma and elective service, with 2 additional locum consultants.

The HSE South has approval to recruit 3 (1 replacement and 2 new posts) consultant orthopaedic surgeon posts at Cork University Hospital/South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital. These are:

§ 2 orthopaedic surgeons with a special interest in paediatric orthopaedic surgery – new posts

§ 1 orthopaedic general surgeon – a replacement post

Recruitment has been completed and it is anticipated that formal letters of appointment will be issued soon.

Physiotherapy Initiative

Physiotherapist-led clinics were introduced HSE South in 2010, to address the waiting list for OPD appointments. The physiotherapists triage patients based on the longest waiters, primarily from the hip and knee lists. 35% of the patients seen at these clinics were referred to an orthopaedic consultant for surgical review. A review of this initiative has been completed, in order to continue to improve patient flows.

Approval for 3 additional physiotherapists under the Outpatient Programme for Rheumatology and Orthopaedics has been sanctioned, and the recruitment process has begun. These posts will allow for more musculo-skeletal physiotherapy led clinics.

HSE National OPD Project:

At national level, an Outpatients Department (OPD) Performance Improvement Group has been established to improve OPD services throughout the country. The project aims to address the significant numbers on waiting lists for some specialties. It will standardise all aspects of OPD, including waiting lists validation, management of DNAs, improvement in new to return ratios and improved triaging.

Cork University Hospital and South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital have been selected to participate in the initial phase of this project.

Cork University Hospital is undertaking a validation exercise on its OPD waiting lists. This exercise will link in with the National OPD Programme on the validation protocol, particularly for the clinical governance process for removing patients from waiting lists and for GP involvement in the process. It is expected that this exercise will reduce the numbers on the waiting list.

GP Referral Project

Under the reorganisation of acute hospital services in Cork and Kerry, electronic GP referral to acute hospitals is being piloted. This will enable more efficient processing of referrals and allow patients and GPs to see waiting times for individual consultants.

I believe that the implementation of these initiatives will greatly improve waiting list numbers and I will be closely monitoring the situation to ensure that these statistics become a thing of the past.