Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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791. To ask the Minister for Health if he plans to promote and advertise the use of the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive scheme to help alleviate waiting lists for medical procedures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5037/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that the HSE are currently making arrangements to run local media campaigns to raise awareness of the Cross-Border Healthcare Directive and the Northern Ireland Planned Healthcare Scheme, and it has also recently issued information to each Hospital Group to help further raise patient awareness about the availability of both of these schemes.

The awareness of these schemes has certainly increased in recent years as indicated by the ten-fold increase in the number of persons accessing the CBD scheme between 2016 and 2020, although the Covid pandemic has impacted on patients willingness and ability to travel to access care more recently.