David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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791. To ask the Minister for Health the number of patients waiting for hip replacements, by wait times; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16540/22]

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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792. To ask the Minister for Health the number of patients waiting for knee replacements by wait times; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16541/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 791 and 792 together.

It is recognised that waiting times for scheduled appointments and procedures have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. While significant work continues to positively impact on waiting times and improve pathways to elective care, acute hospitals have been impacted by operational challenges arising from surges in cases related to the Delta and Omicron variants.

The HSE has confirmed to the Department that patient safety remains at the centre of all hospital activity and elective care scheduling. To ensure services are provided in a safe, clinically-aligned and prioritised way, hospitals are following HSE clinical guidelines and protocols.

The Department of Health continues to work with the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to identify ways to improve access to care, including through increased use of private hospitals, funding weekend and evening work in public hospitals, funding “see and treat” services, providing virtual clinics, and increasing capacity in the public hospital system.

The 2022 Waiting List Action Plan, which was launched on the 26th of February, allocates €350 million to the HSE and NTPF to reduce waiting lists. Under this plan the Department, HSE, and NTPF will deliver urgent additional capacity for the treatment of patients, as well as investing in longer term reforms to bring sustained reductions in waiting lists.

The plan builds on the successes of the short-term 2021 plan that ran from September to December last year. The 2021 plan was developed by the Department of Health, the HSE and the NTPF and was driven and overseen by a senior governance group co-chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of Health and the CEO of the HSE and met fortnightly.

This rigorous level of governance and scrutiny of waiting lists has continued into this year with the oversight group evolving into the Waiting List Task Force. The Task Force will meet regularly to drive progress of the 2022 plan.

This is the first stage of an ambitious multi-annual waiting list plan, which is currently under development in the Department of Health. Between them, these plans will work to support short, medium, and long term initiatives to reduce waiting times and provide the activity needed in years to come.

The information requested by the Deputy concerning the number of patients waiting for knee & hip replacements by wait times, is outlined in the table below.

IP Hips and Knees as at 24/02/2022

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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793. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to publish diagnostic and community health waiting lists on a monthly basis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16542/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The 2022 Waiting List Action Plan includes actions to address both diagnostic and community waiting lists. Under the Plan, €5 million has been allocated to secure an additional 30,000 acute diagnostics appointments. Waiting list management, processes and systems are also being developed for acute diagnostics as part of the longer-term reform actions. A programme of work is due to commence, subject to my Department’s approval, to deliver full waiting list data collection for all radiology diagnostics as well as a waiting list management protocol for radiology diagnostics, to be developed by the National Treatment Purchase Fund and the HSE. The Plan will also progress towards achievement of the Government maximum waiting time targets. The DoH, in consultation with the HSE, will work with key stakeholders to define the scope of diagnostics, procedures, and related services to be included within the maximum wait time target across acute scheduled care.

Longer-term fundamental reform is dependent on resolving the delivery of integrated care which is patient focused and requires that delays in access to community care are addressed. Therefore, under the Waiting List Action Plan, important exploratory and foundational actions will be undertaken to map out and take short, medium-and long-term action to improve access and address waiting lists and waiting times in the community. These actions include the design and implementation of the Integrated Community Case Management System (ICCMS) as a foundational case management system to support communication between healthcare providers and effective management, planning and delivery of services; and the development of a process to complete a capacity and demand analysis across community waiting lists.