Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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194. To ask the Minister for Health the number of cataract surgeries cancelled nationally by hospital in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date 2019, in tabular form. [51939/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Maintaining scheduled care access for all patients is a key priority for hospitals. I fully acknowledge the distress and inconvenience for patients and their families when elective procedures are cancelled, particularly for clinically urgent procedures.

While every effort is made to avoid cancellation or postponement of planned procedures, the HSE advise that planned procedures and operations can be postponed or cancelled for a variety of reasons including capacity issues due to increased scheduled and unscheduled care demand, medical reasons, and patient choice.

In relation to the specific question raised by the Deputy, as this is a service matter, I have asked the HSE to reply to the Deputy directly.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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195. To ask the Minister for Health the number of ENT surgeries cancelled for children nationally by hospital in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date 2019, in tabular form. [51940/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Maintaining scheduled care access for all patients is a key priority for hospitals. I fully acknowledge the distress and inconvenience for patients and their families when elective procedures are cancelled, particularly for clinically urgent procedures.

While every effort is made to avoid cancellation or postponement of planned procedures, the HSE advise that planned procedures and operations can be postponed or cancelled for a variety of reasons including capacity issues due to increased scheduled and unscheduled care demand, medical reasons, and patient choice.

In relation to the specific question raised by the Deputy, as this is a service matter, I have asked the HSE to reply to the Deputy directly.

Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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196. To ask the Minister for Health the number of children on ENT surgery waiting lists nationally by hospital in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date 2019, in tabular form. [51941/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Reducing waiting time for patients for hospital operations and procedures is a key priority for Government. In this regard, the Government is committed to improving waiting times for hospital appointments and procedures.

Budget 2020 announced that the Government has further increased investment in tackling waiting lists, with funding to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) increasing from €75 million in 2019 to €100 million in 2020.

My Department is working with the HSE and the NTPF to develop the Scheduled Care Access Plan 2020, which will include ENT services. The National Service Plan 2020 will set out HSE planned activity level for the year ahead, while the NTPF will work with the hospital system to provide additionality to improve access to inpatient/daycase treatment.

In this regard, I would encourage all hospital groups and individual hospitals to engage with the NTPF to identify waiting list proposals for the remainder of this year and for 2020.

The information requested by the Deputy has been provided to my Department by the NTPF and is provided below.