Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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1313. To ask the Minister for Health when the National Treatment Purchase Fund will be fully accessible; the way in which it will be applied for; the criteria for persons to access the fund; the hospitals both public and private that will be participating in the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27874/17]

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 order to reduce the numbers of long-waiting patients, I asked the HSE to develop Waiting List Action Plans for 2017 in the areas of Inpatient/Daycase, Scoliosis and Outpatient Services. These plans have been published and their implementation is ongoing. The Inpatient / Daycase and Outpatient Plans focus on reducing the number of patients waiting 15 months or more for inpatient and daycase treatment or for an outpatient appointment by the end of October. The Scoliosis Action Plan aims to ensure that no patient who requires scoliosis surgery will be waiting more than four months for surgery by the end of 2017. Under these Plans, since early February, over 14,200 patients have come off the Inpatient/Daycase Waiting List and nearly 49,000 patients have come off the Outpatient Waiting List.

In addition, the NTPF is currently rolling out its Daycase Waiting List Initiative focused on those waiting longest for daycase treatment, with a view to ensuring that in excess of 2,000 patients waiting more than 18 months for a daycase procedure will have received an offer of an appointment for their procedure by the end of June.The NTPF has advised that to date over 2,500 patients files have been transferred to private hospitals under this Initiative, 631 patients have accepted an offer of treatment in a private hospital and that 178 patients have received their procedure.