Written answers

Wednesday, 22 January 2025

Department of Health

Hospital Waiting Lists

Photo of Darren O'RourkeDarren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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1343. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons on the waiting list for vascular surgery with addresses in Meath; and the average waiting times, in tabular form. [46413/24]

Photo of Stephen DonnellyStephen 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.

A multi-annual approach through a series of Waiting List Action Plans has been adopted to address this issue. 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.

This approach has 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. 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.

In relation to the particular query raised by the Deputy, the attached information, provided to my Department by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) provides the number of persons on the waiting list for vascular surgery by area of residence (AOR) Co. Meath. The National Treatment Purchase Fund have advised that 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.

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