Written answers

Thursday, 22 May 2025

Department of Health

Hospital Waiting Lists

Photo of Michael FitzmauriceMichael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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359. To ask the Minister for Health the number of people waiting for a routine CT scan in Roscommon University Hospital as of the 16 May 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26459/25]

Photo of Jennifer Carroll MacNeillJennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Waiting times for radiology and diagnostic services have been recognised as an issue for some time. This year the Productivity and Savings Taskforce published an action plan for 2025 which commits to a range of services being available 7 days a week, including diagnostics activity. It will also ensure that all publicly funded diagnostics are captured in the National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) by the end of 2025, thereby improving care coordination and reducing duplication of tests and procedures.

The NTPF is working to support access to radiology and in October 2024 it published a National Radiology Diagnostic Waiting List Management Protocol. As well as ensuring that patients seeking access to Radiology Diagnostic services are administratively managed in a safe, timely, fair, and equitable manner whilst waiting, the protocol will facilitate improved data collection and reporting about patients on Radiology Diagnostic waiting lists.

In the interim, the information that is currently being collected as part of a pilot project is being tested and validated at hospital, hospital region and national level and as such should not be used/reported without the context of the caveats set out below:

  • Data is subject to inclusions and exclusions which are documented in the Data Profile Document. This document is available from Acute Operations and has been circulated to all Hospital Regions.
  • Data contains urgent, routine and surveillance/planned activity which is currently not broken down in detail, as such this includes surveillance/planned activity which may not be exceeding planned date.
  • Data is still undergoing validation at Hospital and Hospital Region level. Data does not take into account local nuances at site level (Site profile developed to support understanding of same).
  • The purpose of this aggregate data is to provide a National Level overview of the number of patients waiting for modalities of CT, MRI and Ultrasound.
  • This report is not intended to be used for the active management of hospital diagnostics waiting list, local reports and mechanisms should continue to be used for the management of diagnostics waiting lists at hospital level.
The NTPF provides my Department with quarterly reports which set out waiting list data for CT, MRI and Ultrasound. The HSE advises that, at present, further diagnostic scans (including cholangiopancreatography, electroencephalogram, angiogram, electrocardiogram and bone scan), are not yet captured as part of this project.

The most recent report available for Quarter 1 2025 indicates there was a total of 898 patients waiting for a CT scan at Roscommon University Hospital. It should be noted that this figure includes all outpatients waiting, urgent, semi urgent, routine and planned/surveillance (where diagnostic access is planned at particular time intervals).

Photo of Michael FitzmauriceMichael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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360. To ask the Minister for Health the weekly capacity for routine CT scans in Roscommon University Hospital; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26460/25]

Photo of Jennifer Carroll MacNeillJennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.

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