A €420 million plan aimed at reducing waiting times for scheduled medical care to just over five months on average has been approved by Ministers.
The new Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill brought a memo to Cabinet on Wednesday detailing a new waiting list action plan aimed at reducing waiting times for patients, and which will seek to bring hospital waiting lists in line with Sláintecare targets.
The funding will be split between €190 million for the Health Service Executive and €230 million for the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).
“Our people are living longer, healthier lives and will need timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled patient care in the years ahead. In the programme for government, we committed to further reduce waiting times which will bring a number of benefits from a patient perspective, in terms of improved outcomes and a better experience of the health service,” Ms MacNeill said.
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Ministers approved fresh targets which would see 50 per cent of patients waiting less than the Sláintecare wait-time targets of 10 weeks for outpatients and 12 weeks for inpatient and day cases by the end of this year.
The plan would see the average wait time for scheduled care reduced to 5½ months. It would also see the proportion of patients waiting more than 24 months, or at risk of waiting more than 24 months by the end of 2025, reduced by 90 per cent this year.
Bernard Gloster, chief executive of the HSE, said the plan was a “critical step in addressing the challenges our health service faces head-on”.
“This plan outlines a multifaceted approach to reducing waiting times, enhancing capacity and streamlining processes to ensure we are not only meeting the immediate needs of patients but also preparing for future demands. It builds on the efforts of the past, recognising the progress we have made, while acknowledging the work still to be done.”
The Department of Health has said that in 2024 there was a roughly 12 per cent reduction in the total number of patients waiting more than 12 months.
The aim of the NTPF is to find capacity in the public and private healthcare service for specific groups of patients on existing waiting lists.
The new waiting list plan says a new tender process will be run for the commissioning of patient treatment and this will replace the current panel agreement which is in place.
