Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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292. To ask the Minister for Health the total number of people on the waiting list for ophthalmology in Cork, in tabular form; the average waiting time for appointment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30164/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It is acknowledged that many patients are still waiting too long for hospital appointments and treatments.

As part of the multi-annual approach to reducing waiting lists, and just as importantly the length of time that patients are waiting, I published the 2024 Waiting List Action Plan on 27th March. Total funding of €360 million has been provided for the plan this year which sets out 19 Actions across three themes: Delivering Capacity, Reforming Scheduled Care and Enabling Scheduled Care Reform.

The Waiting List Action Plan multi-annual approach, initiated in 2021, encompasses a two-pronged approach of short-term actions to increase capacity and activity in the immediate term, and longer-term reform measures to sustainably reduce and reform hospital waiting lists and waiting times.

The 2024 Plan builds on the work of previous plans which have achieved significant progress in overall waiting list reduction and in addressing long waiting times, against a backdrop of significantly increased demand for scheduled care services. This year’s plan aims to achieve a reduction in the overall number of patients on waiting lists while three of the four overarching targets in the Plan are specifically focused on improving waiting times.

With regard to the information requested by the Deputy about the Ophthalmology Outpatient waiting list for County Cork, the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) have advised that there are 7,070 patients on the list with an area of residence in County Cork.

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 on the waiting list at a particular time. The average (median) wait time for patients on the Ophthalmology Outpatient waiting list with an area of residence in County Cork is 325.5 days.