Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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237. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 198 of 9 February 2017, if the information provided within the National Treatment Purchase Fund preplanned list data which was not collected until 2014 is not at variance with the NTPF informing him that the way it classifies its waiting lists has been the same since its inception in 2002. [7743/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Last Thursday in the Dáil I clarified that the NTPF published waiting data has consistently excluded patients classified as Pre-Admit and awaiting Planned Procedures. The NTPF published waiting list figures provide an up-to-date and verified picture of patients actively waiting for a date for Inpatient/Daycase and Outpatient appointments.

In 2014 the NTPF guidance to hospitals regarding waiting list management advised that hospitals needed to keep a record of patients pre-admission and awaiting planned procedures. The NTPF has been in a position to provide to my Department Pre-Admit patients data since 2011 and Planned Procedures data since 2014.

Indeed, the NTPF regularly reviews its process to ensure best practice and it is currently commissioning a research project examining updated international best practise around publication models and methodologies. I look forward to this work being concluded and to any action arising from its recommendations being taken.

Last Thursday I committed to asking the NTPF to work towards the publication of the Pre-Admit and Planned Procedures Waiting Lists. In this regard, the NTPF will review and advise on clinically appropriate time bands for these two different categories of patients.

Finally, last week, I also announced that the NTPF will audit the practices in the hospitals highlighted by the individual cases featured in the RTE documentary.