Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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155. To ask the Minister for Health the procedure a person should go through if they require surgery in another country; the way in which they receive a referral for the surgery; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44347/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Directive on Patients' Rights in Cross Border Healthcare provides rules for the reimbursements to patients of the cost of receiving treatment abroad, where the patient would be entitled to such treatment in their home Member State, and supplements the rights that patients already have at EU level. Public patients may access the healthcare they require in either the public or private healthcare system of another Member State under the Cross-Border Directive (CBD). Access to healthcare abroad is based on patients following public patient pathways, i.e. they must demonstrate they have followed the equivalent public patient pathways that a patient would follow if accessing public healthcare in Ireland. It is important to note that reimbursement is confined to the costs of the care itself and that the rates of reimbursement cannot exceed the cost of provision of the care if it were provided in the Irish public health service. Referral for care under the CBD may be made by a GP, a hospital consultant and certain other clinicians. The CBD excludes certain health services, e.g. services of public health, long term care, organ transplantation, etc. All persons on public waiting lists, other than for such exempt health services, are eligible for the Scheme.

The Health Service Executive operates the EU Directive on Patients’ Rights in Cross Border Healthcare in Ireland. In line with practice in other EU Member States, the HSE, through the National Contact Point (NCP) office, provides information for patients on the Cross-Border Directive on its website - www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/1/schemes/cbd/ - and also by phone, 056 778 4551. The principal function of the NCP (which is the mechanism specified under the Directive for the dissemination of information on the Directive by Member States) is to facilitate exchange of information for patients concerning their rights and entitlements relating to receiving healthcare in another Member State, in particular the terms and conditions for reimbursement of cost and the procedures for accessing and determining those entitlements.