Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)
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Question 630: To ask the Minister for Health the policy for hospitals to contact persons with appointments when their appointments have been cancelled or postponed due to contractual issues between the Health Service Executive and the consultants leading to a delay in the service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25097/12]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The HSE recognises that patients are unacceptably discommoded when cancellation of an outpatient (OP) appointment occurs. Staff make every effort, often with short notice, to contact patients through phone or by letter, time permitting. Occasions will occur in any health service which will necessitate the reorganisation of an OP clinic. However these should be rare occurrences when a structured organised OP service is in place in a hospital.

In recognition of the risks inherent in any disruption to a patient's arranged appointment time, best practice internationally would dictate that a well structured hospital OP service would require a minimum of six week's written notice from a service for any planned cancellation of either patient or clinic. Further, such cancellations should be monitored and actively performance managed by the hospital in question. The Special Delivery Unit intends to integrate and align existing HSE outpatient improvement projects, initiatives and clinical programmes under the SDU OP Performance Improvement Programme structure. A key component of this overall programme will be to develop national plans and programmes, for local implementation that will be actively supported and performance managed.

The outcome will be a fundamental re-engineering and standardisation of hospital process's around the delivery of hospital OP services placing the patient firmly at the centre.