Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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171. To ask the Minister for Health the average wait time for patients in County Kerry referred for hip surgery under the treatment purchase scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40685/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has advised my Department that they are unable to provide average wait times by county for patients referred under the National Treatment Purchase Scheme.

It is important to note that the NTPF works with public hospitals, as opposed to with patients directly, to offer and provide the funding for 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.

The key criteria of the NTPF is the prioritisation of the longest waiting patients first. While the NTPF identifies patients eligible for NTPF treatment, it is solely on the basis of their time spent on the Inpatient/Daycase Waiting List. The clinical suitability of the patient to avail of NTPF funded treatment is determined by the public hospital.

The NTPF have advised my Department that to date this year they have made 172 offers of NTPF funded treatment to patients on the Orthopaedic waiting list at University Hospital Kerry, of which 86 were for arthroplasty of hip, unilateral.