Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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421. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons on the neurology waiting list in Tallaght Hospital over the past three years by the length of time they have been waiting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9633/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Improving waiting times for hospital procedures is a key commitment in the Programme for Government.

I hope to publish the joint Department of Health, HSE and NTPF Scheduled Care Access Plan 2019 shortly. This will ensure an appropriate balance between high volume activities and offering treatment to complex long waiting patients.

This Plan for inpatients/day case (IPDC) and outpatients will set out the activity targets for the HSE in line with the National Service Plan, as well as those for the NTPF taking account of their increased funding totalling €75milion in 2019, to provide treatment for patients.

As of the end of January 2019, there were 33 patients on the IPDC waiting list for Neurology in Tallaght University Hospital. This represents a 48% decrease since January 2017. In January 2019 there were 2,896 patients on the Neurology outpatient waiting list. The HSE advise that Tallaght University Hospital has recently recruited new consultants in the area of neurology as well as orthopaedics and ENT.

In addition, as part of its work to address long-waiters, Tallaght University Hospital has engaged with the NTPF to propose a number of insourcing and outsourcing initiatives that can help to address the outpatient lists.

A breakdown of the waiting list requested by the Deputy are provided.

Table contd.