Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 October 2024
349. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Health the average amount of time patients were waiting on the OPD waiting list in June and December each year between 2016 and 2024, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43646/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraIt 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 National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) 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. The attached information, provided to my Department by the NTPF sets out the average amount of time patients were waiting on the OPD waiting list in June and December each year between 2016 and 2024. The NTPF have further advised that data for June 2021 is not available due to the HSE cyber attack.
