Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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1133. To ask the Minister for Health his views on recent reports that almost 12,000 operations and hospital procedures were cancelled in the first six months of 2015, and that twice the number of such cancellations will occur in 2015 as occurred in 2011; and his plans to address this matter. [32205/15]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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There are a number of reasons why planned elective procedures are cancelled and these can include medical related reasons, non availability of an appropriate bed, staffing issues and failure of patients to attend. In 2015, there has been significant pressures on Emergency Departments, which may have resulted in rescheduling of routine procedures in some hospitals. All urgent procedures continue to be prioritised based on clinical need and all cancellations are rescheduled at the next available date.

In order to address pressure on EDs, I convened the ED Taskforce, which published a plan earlier this year, including a range of time defined actions to optimise existing hospital and community capacity, to develop internal capability and process improvement and to improve leadership, governance and oversight. The implementation of this plan is a key focus for the HSE in 2015. Improving waiting lists for scheduled care is also a key priority for Government. In January, taking into account current pressures on acute hospital services, I put in place a maximum permissible waiting time for in-patient and day case treatment and outpatient appointments of 18 months by 30 June and 15 months by year end. Additional funding of €51m has been provided this year to ensure that these maximum waiting times are achieved. In June, the HSE reported performance against the 18 month maximum waiting time of 99.6% for IP/DC and 92% for OPD. In order to maintain progress and to make further improvements to achieve a 15 month maximum waiting time by end December, the HSE has directed that hospitals which breached the 18 month maximum waiting time in August are to be fined. The fines will be calculated on the basis of the activity based funding cost of each procedure and are being imposed from 1 September.