Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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1582. To ask the Minister for Health the total number of persons who are waiting for sleep disorder care (details supplied) including all outpatient, inpatient, day case, planned, active, to come in and suspension lists; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20214/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, the attached document, provided to my Department by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), outlines the number of IPDC patients waiting for the specialty of sleep disorder by category and time-band at the end of March 2022. The NTPF has advised my Department that they do not provide outpatient data by procedure, only by specialty.

Reducing waiting times for hospital appointments and procedures remains a key commitment of Government. 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.

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.

IPDC Sleep Disorder Waits as at 31/03/2022