Written answers

Wednesday, 18 January 2023

Photo of Marian HarkinMarian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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1242. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 640 of 13 December 2022, if there is a timeline for a resolution from the engagement between his Department, the HSE and the NTPF and an organisation (details supplied) on allowing public system patients awaiting cancer surgeries to be treated at private hospitals. [63538/22]

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has allocated significantly increased funding to cancer services in recent years, which was used to maintain services during Covid-19 and to drive improvements. In 2021 the Government allocated an additional €57 to cancer services: €20 million in new development funding, €12 million for measures against Covid-19, €15 million for new cancer drugs, and €10 m for cancer screening. In 2022 the Government allocated €35 million extra funding: €20 million for new development funding, €15 million for new cancer drugs.

Services resumption following the Covid pandemic is evident. Medical oncology has made making a strong recovery after the first months of the pandemic with 2022 activity at 102% of 2019 figures so far, and treatments across radiotherapy and surgery have total activity levels for the year at 80-90%+ of 2019 figures.

This recovery has continued through 2021 and 2022, with the longest waiting times for rapid access clinics for the four main cancer types improved compared to the previous 11 months; Urgent breast cancer down 21.1%, non-urgent breast cancer down 18.8%; lung cancer down 57.3% and prostate cancer down 60%.

The number of people coming forward to their GPs and being referred to cancer Rapid Access Clinics (RAC) has continued to improve. From January to September of last year, GP e-referrals to RACs (35,840) are at 137.7% of 2019 activity for the same period. Total attendances at RACs for Jan-Nov stands at 31,851 new patients.

The Department of Health and the HSE recognise the vulnerability of scheduled care activity at this time of year when our acute hospitals and healthcare staff are under significant pressure. We are seeing increased ED attendances which means that some cancellations of elective procedures are required, and we recognise the impact this will have on patients.

The Department of Health and the HSE are working together to protect all scheduled care activity in particular that which is urgent and time critical.

As part of the Winter Planning process hospitals were asked to identify support requirements, including use of private capacity, to support them through the winter period. Private capacity identified was supported on the basis that local arrangements were in place to ensure effective patient flow and transfers. Hospitals and Hospital Groups engage locally with individual Private Hospitals on a daily basis to access additional capacity where available.

The HSE also directly engaged with the Private Health Association ahead of the Christmas period and asked that any additional capacity available be identified through HSE Acute Operations.

The engagements between the Department, HSE and NTPF referred to in my reply on 13 December relate to discussions around a potential longer term more strategic agreement with the private hospital sector and these engagements are at an early stage.

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