Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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Question 57: To ask the Minister for Health if he will consider reverting to the older system of processing medical cards that is each county processes their applications. [24071/12]

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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I acknowledge that a number of difficulties arose with the processing of medical cards at the centralised application office in the final quarter of last year. These difficulties gave rise to a very large backlog and long delays for both new applicants and medical card renewals. A number of factors gave rise to these problems including,

· the processing of medical cards was centralised before the necessary resources were in place,

· a significant backlog already existed prior to centralisation,

· poor communication with medical card applicants and the public, limited support from local health offices and poor communication between local offices and the centralised service,

· and poor practices and procedures in the handling, filing and processing of medical card documentation.

These issues were a matter of serious concern to me and I had a number of meetings with the HSE over the last six months to raise my concerns. As a result, the HSE has introduced a number of changes in recent months to the administration of the medical card application system. These include

· increased staffing levels in the centralised processing service and in respect of medical card appeals,

· improvements to how medical card renewals are assessed and the frequency by which they are assessed,

· increased flexibility for GPs to add certain categories of patients to their GMS list,

· the fast-tracking of backlogged cases, and cases where documentation has been mis-filed.

While a number of customer service and communication issues remain to be addressed, the HSE has been making good progress in eliminating the backlog and preventing further backlogs occurring. A backlog of 58,000 applications from last year has been completely cleared. The HSE receives up to 50,000 applications per month and over 90% of complete applications are processed within 15 days. A review of medical card processing has been undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers which contains a number of recommendations that the HSE is considering.

I continue to monitor the situation and meet with the HSE on a regular basis to address any issues which may arise in respect of medical cards.