Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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1381. To ask the Minister for Health the total number of persons waiting for a gynaecology appointment nationally by hospital; the average wait for an initial appointment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19388/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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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 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 25th 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. Gynaecology waiting lists are a priority area of focus of this plan. 

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 programme, 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.

Waiting list reductions and maximum waiting time targets apply to all acute hospital scheduled care active waiting lists. The HSE is engaged with hospital groups in a process to focus on specialties and procedures towards which the waiting list fund needs to be specifically directed to ensure the targets are achieved by year end.

In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, the attached document, provided to my Department by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, outlines the number of persons waiting for a gynaecology appointment nationally by hospital. The NTPF has advised my Department that, the health system does not collect the data necessary to calculate average wait times. In particular, the time to treatment of patients who have already received their care is not collected. The NTPF collects data on patients currently on the waiting list and the average time that these patients have been waiting is provided here.

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Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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1382. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons waiting for a colonoscopy nationwide; the average wait time; the efforts that are being made to reduce these wait times; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19389/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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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 Omicron variants.

The 2022 Waiting List Action Plan, which was launched on the 25th of February, allocates €350 million to the HSE and National Treatment Purchase Fund (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. GI Endoscopy is one of the specialties receiving specific focus as part of this plan. More particularly, the NTPF have advised my Department that they have already approved a number of insourced patient initiatives for funding in 2022, which will facilitate treatment for 10,200 patients on colonoscopy waiting lists. Further details are provided in the attached document.

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The 2022 Waiting List Action 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 programme, 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.

In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy regarding waiting times for colonoscopy, the attached document, provided to my Department by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, outlines the number of persons waiting for a colonoscopy appointment nationally by hospital as well as the average wait for an initial appointment at the end of March 2022. The NTPF has advised my Department that, the health system does not collect the data necessary to calculate average wait times. In particular, the time to treatment of patients who have already received their care is not collected. The NTPF collects data on patients currently on the waiting list and the average time that these patients have been waiting is provided here.

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