Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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595. To ask the Minister for Health further to his view that the waiting list for gynaecological appointments in Cork University Maternity Hospital is appalling and unacceptable, if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the waiting time for such gynaecological appointments at the Coombe Hospital is a year; his views on whether this is appalling and unacceptable also; and if he will provide funding to reduce the waiting time at the Coombe Hospital in view of his commitment to do so for Cork University Maternity Hospital [4483/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Reducing waiting times for the longest waiting patients is one of this Government's key priorities. Consequently, Budget 2017 allocated €20 million to the NTPF, rising to €55 million in 2018.

In December 2016, I granted approval to the NTPF to dedicate €5m to a daycase waiting list initiative with the aim of ensuring that no patient will be waiting more than 18 months for a daycase procedure, including those on the gynaecology waiting list, by 30 June 2017. Around 3,000 daycases will be managed through this process and outsourcing of treatment will commence shortly.

In addition to current NTPF daycase initiative, in December 2016, my Department wrote to the HSE requesting that it submit in January a Waiting List Action Plan for 2017 in respect of both the Inpatient/Daycase Waiting List and the Outpatient Waiting List. The focus of these plans should be to ensure that no patient is waiting more than 15 months on either list by the end of October, including those awaiting gynaecological appointments and procedures. The HSE has been requested to develop the Inpatient/Daycase Waiting List Action Plan in conjunction with and supported by the NTPF's proposal for utilisation of the remaining €10m of 2017 funding for patient treatment. I expect to make known the details of both plans in the coming weeks.

As part of these plans the HSE has been asked to target specialties, services and hospitals with highest numbers of long waiters as well as improving in-sourcing in public sector, within and across Hospital Groups.