Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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791. To ask the Minister for Health if she will set out the services available in the National Pelvic Floor Centre in St. Michael’s Hospital in Dún Laoghaire; her views on whether this service is adequate; her further views on whether there is scope for expanding these services in this location; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27651/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Pelvic Floor Health Centre in St Michael’s Hospital, Dun Laoghaire was initially established in 2013 and is the referral centre for its surrounding catchment areas for women presenting to GPs who have pelvic issues. It also provides a specialised multidisciplinary service with women from other regions of the country who have more complex, advanced pelvic issues.

The Service is a collaboration between the National Maternity Hospital, St Vincent’s University Hospital and St Michael’s Hospital. The services is a referral centre for women with pelvic issues who present to their GP, and it also provides a specialised multidisciplinary service for women from other regions who have more complex, advanced pelvic issues.

€274,855 was provided under the Women’s Health Action Plan 2022-2023 to provide 4.0 WTE to enable the expansion and development of the Pelvic Floor Health Service.

A dedicated building which was completed in November 2024, comprises 4 clinical rooms, a waiting area and administration support space. This enables a fully operational, highly efficient multidisciplinary team approach in one dedicated clinical surrounding.

Once off funding of c.€250,000 contributed to this upgrade and refurbishment.

The additional investment enables St Michael’s Hospital provides to provide a one-stop-shop assessment clinic, whereby woman can be reviewed and assessed by the full multidisciplinary team at their first consultant visit. A clear care pathway is devised, and the lead health care professional is also identified.

NTPF Waiting list data shows that 49% of women are seen within 6 months and 91% within 12 months of referral and the number of women on the waiting list has reduced by 24% from 579 in April 2023 to 442 in April of this year.

Patients requiring physiotherapy treatment are seen within 1 – 2 weeks of initial review and assessment by the Multi-Disciplinary Team. This is compared to a 3-year waiting time before these posts were in place.

Overall, there has been a significant uplift in the capacity of the service to see new and review patients, making a real and tangible difference to improving women’s health. The HSE’s National Women & Infants Health Programme has advised it is planning a site visit to the service which will inform its evaluation of the service and if there is any scope for expansion.