Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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3285. To ask the Minister for Health the estimated full year cost of subsidies paid to the private hospital network. [41217/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) and the HSE make arrangements with private hospitals to obtain services on behalf of public patients, as necessary.

Currently the NTPF is undertaking work with both public and private hospitals for patients on waiting lists for Inpatient/Daycase procedures, outpatient appointments and GI scopes. The full year costs of using the private hospitals under this arrangement will depend on their actual usage and it is therefore not possible to give a full year cost at this stage.

As part of the response to the additional pressures arising from the Covid-19 pandemic the HSE has put in place a Safety Net agreement with all 18 private hospitals to provide additional hospital capacity. The agreement allows the HSE to access capacity in the private hospitals depending on certain metrics in relation to community infections levels; level of hospitalisation of patients with Covid-19 and the number of patients in ICU beds with Covid-19 being triggered. The agreement is valid for 12 months from the end of January 2021 and is a standard agreement for all the hospitals. As a result of the thresholds being met the agreement was in operation from January to Mid-May. Full year costs associated with the Safety Net will be contingent on any future triggering of the agreement it is therefore not possible to estimate these costs at this point in time.

Following a procurement process outside of the Safety Net arrangement, as part of the Access to Care Fund the HSE has established two panels which will allow it to secure access as required to additional acute services and diagnostics from private providers. This is required to address some of the anticipated shortfalls in capacity arising from Covid-19 measures over the next two years, as well as the effects of the recent ransomware attack. The final amount allocated for this purpose will be dependent on the actual take up by the private hospitals under the tender arrangement.

In view of the above it is therefore not possible to give a final estimate of the costs associated with these initiatives at present.