Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Improving waiting times for hospital procedures is a key commitment in the Programme for Government and in 2018 €50 million was allocated to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to provide treatment for patients.

The recently launched Inpatient/Day Case Action Plan outlines the combined impact of HSE and NTPF activity in 2018.

Under the Plan, the NTPF authorises public hospitals to offer outsourced treatment to clinically suitable long-waiting patients who are on an inpatient/day case waiting list for surgery, having been referred on to such a list following clinical assessment by a consultant/specialist at an outpatient clinic. NTPF authorisations are made in respect of the longest-waiting patients first.

Treatments such as the procedure referred to by the Deputy are provided to patients in public hospitals and also through the NTPF. There is no statutory scheme for the reimbursement by the public health system of the cost incurred by an individual for private healthcare carried out in Ireland.