Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour)
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1218. To ask the Minister for Health the annual value of the contract for the patient advocacy service; the number of staff that it supports; the annual funding for the service for each of the years 2019 to 2021 and to date in 2022; the number of persons supported in each year since 2019; the projected number for 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55465/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The new PAS contract commenced on 1November 2022 for the next 5 years with a total estimated funding of €21,226,947.07. Here is the estimated annual funding from 2022 (November - December) to 2027 (January - October). It should be noted that these figures are excluding VAT and they denote the upper ceiling of expenditure. PAS is only paid for the actual expenditure incurred.

The current headcount of PAS as of October 2022 is 18 staff and PAS advise that recruitment is ongoing as services under the new contract are rolled out.

PAS was established in 2019 and the table below outlines the actual annual fundingof the organisation in each of the years until October 2022. The total amount spent from October 2019 to October 2022 is €3,566,165.29.

PAS services were rolled out in October 2019 to support service users. From October to December 2019, PAS supported 8 service users; in 2020, 427 service users; in 2021, 1205 service users; and in 2022, 1772 service users (1,452 service users supported by PAS by end of October plus an average estimated 160 new contacts per month for November and December).