David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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232. To ask the Minister for Health the weighted average wait time for a person’s first access to outpatient departments at the end of June 2023-2025, in tabular form. [38194/25]

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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233. To ask the Minister for Health the weighted average wait time for people for an elective procedure at the end of June 2023-2025, in tabular form. [38195/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 232 and 233 together.

It is acknowledged that many patients are still waiting too long for hospital appointments and treatments. I am conscious of the burden that 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.

I published the Waiting List Action Plan (WLAP) for 2025 on February 12th, representing the Government’s commitment to reducing waiting times for patients and improving access to hospital care.

In keeping with this commitment, significant funding of €420m was allocated to the Waiting List Action Plan for 2025, €190m for the HSE and €230m for the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). 

With the 2025 plan, we are continuing to build upon the progress delivered to date under the multi annual action plan approach, progressing towards the ultimate vision of a public healthcare service in which everyone has timely access to high-quality scheduled care, where and when they need it.

This year’s WLAP focuses on reducing waiting times for scheduled care and sets out key targets aimed at achieving this objective, including reducing the weighted average wait time for scheduled care to 5.5 months.

The weighted average waiting time is an approach to capture the “average” waiting time and takes account of both how long people are waiting i.e. the time band that people are waiting in, but also the amount of people waiting within each time band. The more people within a given time band, the more “weight” that time band has when calculating the average waiting time across all time bands.

As such, the more people waiting in the longer time bands will contribute more to the overall weighted average waiting time calculation, which can be determined by adding the proportion of patients in each time band.

In relation to the particular query raised, as weighted average wait times are calculated by the Health Service Executive I have asked them to respond directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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234. To ask the Minister for Health the number of people waiting more than four weeks for access to an urgent colonoscopy at the end of June 2023-2025, in tabular form. [38196/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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In relation to the particular query raised, as this is a service matter I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond directly to the Deputy as soon as possible.