Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Periodic validation forms an essential part of best practice in relation to the management of hospital waiting lists.

Validation is a process whereby hospital administration contacts patients on waiting lists at pre-planned intervals to ensure that patients are ready, willing, suitable and available to attend a hospital appointment or if they wish to be removed.

For a number of years validation was conducted at individual hospital level in Ireland but in 2018, the Minister for Health approved the establishment of the National Centralised Validation Unit (NCVU) within the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). The establishment of a centralised function has facilitated the introduction of a standardised approach to validation of waiting lists across all hospitals and across Inpatient Day Case and Outpatient waiting lists.

In relation to the data requested by the Deputy, the NCVU provided the figures in the following table relating to the total number of patients removed from hospital waiting lists each year from 2019 to 2023 as part of the NCVU validation programme. The NCVU has advised my Department that it is not possible to provide a breakdown of the reasons for removal.