Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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518. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons waiting for cataract surgery, by county; the average wait time; the number waiting over one, two, three and four years, respectively, by county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56221/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It is recognised that waiting times for many scheduled appointments and procedures were too long before and have been made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Department of Health continues to work with the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) to identify ways to improve access to care.

The 2023 Waiting List Action Plan builds on the foundational work done in the 2021 and 2022 plans, both of which reversed the annual trend of rising waiting lists.

For 2023, funding totalling €443 million is being allocated to tackle Waiting Lists with €363 million of this being allocated to the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, to reduce hospital waiting lists by implementing longer term reforms and providing additional public and private activity to clear backlogs exacerbated during the pandemic. The remaining €80 million of the €443 million is being targeted at various measures to alleviate community/primary care waiting lists.

With the funding from Budget 2024 (€407 million), we are taking the next steps in the multi-annual approach towards achieving the vision of a world-class public healthcare system in which everyone has timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care, where and when they need it, in line with Sláintecare reforms.

In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, the attached information, was provided to my Department by the NTPF. The NTPF has advised that the health system does not collect the data necessary to calculate true average wait times. In particular, the time to treatment of patients who have already received their care is not collected. The NTPF collects data on patients currently on the waiting list and the average time that these patients have been waiting is provided here.