Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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498. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons waiting for orthopaedic surgery in each of the CHO areas to date; the number for the previous three years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23544/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Budget 2019 announced that the Government had further increased investment in tackling waiting lists, with funding to the NTPF increasing from €55 million in 2018 to €75 million in 2019. The joint Department of Health, HSE, and NTPF Scheduled Care Access Plan 2019 was published in March.

Under the Plan the HSE, in line with the National Service Plan, will deliver 1.155 million elective inpatient and day case discharges at a value of €1.4 billion in 2019. The Scheduled Care Access Plan includes:

- detailed plans from the NTPF to fund 25,000 IPDC treatments; 5,000 Gastro Intestinal Scopes; and 40,000 outpatient first appointments.

- Projections by year end to reduce the overall number of patients on the waiting list (excluding GI scopes) from just over 70,200 in Dec 2018 to under 60,000;

- Within this overall reduction the number of patients waiting longer than 3 months will reduce from 40,200 at the end of 2018 to 31,000;

- It is also projected that for ten identified high volume procedures, including hip and knee replacements, all clinically suitable patients waiting more than 6 months will be offered treatment in 2019. These 10 procedures account for over a third of the active inpatient day case waiting list and represent 60% of NTPF planned activity in 2019.

In relation to the particular matter raised by the Deputy, the table provides the Inpatient and Day Case waiting list figures by hospital for the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and to the end of April 2019.

Inpatient/Day Case Waiting List - Orthopaedics by Hospital