John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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100. To ask the Minister for Health the action he is taking to reduce outpatient waiting times; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the number of patients waiting more than 18 months in Tallaght Hospital has increased by 7,676, 676.9%, since May 2016 and stood at 8,810 at the end of May 2019; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27766/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am conscious that waiting times are often unacceptably long and of the burden that this places on patients and their families. In this regard, the Government is committed to improving waiting times for hospital appointments and procedures.

The joint Department of Health/HSE/National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) Scheduled Care Access Plan 2019 was published in March and sets out measures to improve care for patients waiting for scheduled care in 2019 by reducing waiting times for inpatient/day case treatment and outpatient appointments.

The Access Plan sets out the activity levels for the NTPF, who will supply additionality to HSE activity, in order to reduce waiting times experienced by patients for a hospital appointment, operation or procedure.  

A key element of the Plan is the stabilisation of the Outpatient Waiting List. Under the Plan the HSE, in line with the National Service Plan, will aim to deliver 3.3 million outpatient appointments, of which approximately 1 million will be first appointments. For its part the NTPF will aim to deliver 40,000 first Outpatient appointments.

The NTPF advise that over recent months they have placed a particular focus on engaging with hospital groups and individual hospitals to identify outpatient waiting list proposals and to date in 2019, Tallaght Hospital  has received approval for NTPF funding for a number of Outpatient initiatives:

In addition, my Department is working with the HSE and NTPF, under the Access Plan, with the objective of developing medium-long term improvement initiatives for patient access to hospital procedures. This will include moving care to more appropriate settings and providing care at the lowest level of complexity such as providing ophthalmology in the community; maximising the use of Advanced Nurse Practitioner led clinics; and physiotherapists to manage orthopaedic clinics. 

With regard to overall measures being implemented at Tallaght Hospital to address Outpatient Waiting Lists, I have asked the HSE to respond to the Deputy Directly.