Written answers

Thursday, 14 July 2022

Department of Health

Hospital Waiting Lists

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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843. To ask the Minister for Health the number of patients aged 60-74 and 75+ on acute hospital waiting lists by hospital and speciality as of May 2022, in tabular form; and the number waiting 0-6 months, 6-12 months, 12-18 months and 18+ months. [39410/22]

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has provided the attached table which outlines the number of patients aged 60-74 and the number of patients over the age of 75 on the acute hospital Inpatient/Daycase and Outpatient waiting lists at the end of May 2022, by hospital, by specialty and by time band.

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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844. To ask the Minister for Health the number of patients aged under 18 on acute hospital waiting lists by hospital and speciality as of May 2022, in tabular form; and the number waiting 0-6 months, 6-12 months, 12-18 months and 18+ months. [39411/22]

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has provided the attached table which outlines the number of patients under 18 years of age on the acute hospital Inpatient/Daycase and Outpatient waiting lists at the end of May 2022, by hospital, by specialty and by time band.

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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845. To ask the Minister for Health the mean, median, and maximum waiting time across National Treatment Purchase Fund-reported waiting lists by speciality and hospital for May 2022, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39412/22]

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, waiting list information by hospital and by specialty is published monthly and is available on the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) website at:

The NTPF only collects data on patients currently on the waiting list. The time to treatment of patients who have already received their care is not collected. As a result, the health system does not have the data necessary to calculate true average wait times.

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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846. To ask the Minister for Health the number of patients removed from National Treatment Purchase Fund waiting lists as a result of validation for each month to date in 2022, in tabular form; the numbers by reason for removal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39413/22]

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware from my previous responses on this issue, including Parliamentary Question No 404 of the 23rd June 2022 (PQ 33335/22), and No 874 of 12th July 2022 (PQ 37406/22), the validation process is carried out through cycles where the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) works with individual hospitals, via specified waiting lists, in order to identify appropriate patient cohorts to validate, generate reports, contact patients, allow for response time, response collation, and patient removal. As such a breakdown of validation figures by hospital each month does not reflect the appropriate activity and removal rates of the validation cycle. In addition, to generate such a report would require significant manual intervention as it does not correlate with how the validation process operates in practice.

The NTPF has advised my Department that the number of patients removed from Acute Hospital Waiting Lists through their validation programme year to date up to end June 2022 was 3,942 from Inpatient/Day Case and 45,561 from Outpatient waiting lists.

In relation to the numbers by reason for removal, the NTPF does not currently collate data on the reasons patients respond that they no longer require the appointment or procedure.

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