Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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803. To ask the Minister for Health the total number of people on the waiting list for ophthalmology in County Cavan and County Monaghan; and the average waiting time for appointment in each county in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and to date in 2024, in tabular form. [43052/24]

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. I am conscious of the burden this places on patients and their families.

To address the issue, I adopted a multi-annual approach through a series of Waiting List Action Plans. Commencing in late 2021, these plans encompass short-term actions to increase capacity and activity in the short and immediate term, and longer-term reform measures to sustainably reduce both hospital waiting lists and waiting times.

The 2024 Plan with a budget of €360 million, 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.

Funding of €420m is being allocated to the Waiting List Action Plan for 2025. This represents an almost 17% increase (€60m) above the significant funding allocated for the Action Plan this year.

The investment clearly demonstrates the Government’s ongoing commitment to sustainably reducing and reforming hospital waiting lists and waiting times. With this significant funding for 2025, we will continue to progress towards a having a public healthcare service in which everyone has timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care, where and when they need it.

The information requested by the Deputy about patients on ophthalmology waiting lists with an Area of Residence in Counties Cavan and Monaghan is outlined at the following link. This information was provided to my Department by the NTPF.

The health system does not collect the data necessary to calculate 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.

">Ophthalmology WL Mean and Median for Cavan and Monaghan AOR