Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

25. To ask the Minister for Health if the National Treatment Purchase Fund has informed him of its strategy for 2022 in terms of planned procedures and planned outpatient visits for persons who have been waiting for a long-time; if so, the specialties; the targets for each specialty; the waiting time threshold at which the respective interventions would occur; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26877/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The 2022 Waiting List Action Plan, which I launched in February, was developed following extensive consultation between my Department, the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund. €350 million is being allocated to the HSE and NTPF to provide additional public and private activity to further stabilise and reduce scheduled care waiting lists and times and bring forward much needed longer-term reform.

The NTPF has been allocated €150 of the €350. With this funding they are projected to remove 273,000 patients from acute hospital waiting lists. This figure comprises 125,000 patients from OPD waiting lists, 37,000 from IPDC, and 21,000 patients waiting for a GI scope. In addition some 90,000 patients will be removed through administrative validation.

While they will seek to arrange over 150 different types of IPDC procedures, there will be a particular focus on 15 high volume procedures. These 15 procedures (e.g. cataracts, cystoscopies, hip replacements) represent a third of people currently on the active waiting list. In 2022 the NTPF will seek to offer treatment to all clinically suitable patients waiting more than 6 months for one of these procedures.

The NTPF will continue to arrange outpatient consultations in public and private hospitals. There will be a particular focus on 7 high volume specialties including gynecology orthopaedical and urology.

Its focus on the GI scope waiting list will continue to grow as it seeks to treat 21,000 patients in public and private hospitals in 2022.

The Waiting List Taskforce, chaired by the Secretary General and the CEO of the HSE meets fortnightly to monitor delivery of the plan including NTPF activity.