Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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548. To ask the Minister for Health if a person who attends and pays for a consultation with a private consultant can then be referred to the top of a public waiting list by that consultant without incurring fees should the medical need be great enough. [43190/20]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Health Act 2004, the Health Service Executive (HSE) is required to manage and deliver, or arrange to be delivered on its behalf, health and personal social services. Section 6 of the HSE Governance Act 2013 bars the Minister for Health from directing the HSE to provide a treatment or a personal service to any individual or to confer eligibility on any individual.

The National Waiting List Management Policy is a standardised approach used by the HSE to manage scheduled care treatment for in-patient, day case and planned procedures. It sets out the processes that hospitals are to implement to manage waiting lists and was developed in 2014 to ensure that all administrative, managerial and clinical staff follow an agreed national minimum standard for the management and administration of waiting lists for scheduled care.

The decision to add a patient to a waiting list is made by a Consultant or Registar. All patients added to the waiting list must be assigned a clinical priority of routine or urgent. It is the responsibility of the clinician making the decision to admit to define the patient as routine or urgent.