Tag Archives: Waiting lists

1 year maximum on Hospital Waiting Lists

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Waiting Lists to be reduced

Waiting Lists to be reduced

All public hospitals are being instructed to ensure they have no patients waiting more than 12 months by the end of the year. The Minister for Health Dr James Reilly has also announced changes in the role of the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), which will take place with immediate effect (Irish Medical Times)

 

These changes are another stage in the implementation of the Government’s health reform agenda and follow on from the establishment of the Special Delivery Unit, the Minister said.

Besides the waiting list instruction, there are two other main three changes involved. The NTPF will target particular backlogs rather than routinely accept referrals of patients waiting over three months. The requirement that the NTPF purchase 90 per cent of treatments in the private sector is being ended.

“When I announced the setting up of the SDU, I said that the role of the NTPF would be changed to support the mission of the new Unit. The SDU led by Dr Martin Connor is already putting systems in place to track, monitor and manage patient flows through the hospital system.  I intend that the resources of the NTPF, and by that I mean not just financial resources but also its data systems and highly-trained and experienced staff, will now be fully aligned with the SDU,” the Minister said.

The NTPF is entering a transition phase. It will continue to fund patient treatments but will be shifting its focus to target waiting lists more strategically, to deliver more treatments for the funds provided and to incentivise hospitals to manage their lists proactively in the interests of patients.

The SDU is carrying out a detailed analysis of the management of elective and non-elective care. However, it is already clear that individual hospitals can do more to reduce maximum waiting times for their patients.

“It is  unacceptable that hospitals leave some patients on waiting lists for very long periods of time, safe in the knowledge that the NTPF will eventually pick up the tab. I will no longer tolerate this attitude to patients – hospitals need to become accountable for the listing decisions of their surgeons. As part of the changes I am announcing today, I am requiring all hospitals to ensure that they have no patient listed as waiting over 12 months for treatment by the end of the year. Where they fail to do so, the NTPF will source the necessary treatments and the hospitals’ budgets will be reduced by a corresponding amount in 2012,” the Minister said.

“I want a system where the patient and taxpayer get the greatest return on scarce resources consistent with quality and safety. The NTPF will purchase treatments wherever it gets the best value in either the public or the private sector. I want the NTPF to drive a hard bargain on behalf of patients without regard to the location of the treatment,” the Minister said.

The SDU will be introducing a more focused strategy to target treatments for patients. This will require new data systems, a new accountability framework and a sustained focus by clinical and management leaders in hospitals to reduce the lists from their present level and prevent them building up again. As part of these changes, the Minister has decided that for the remainder of this year, the NTPF will no longer routinely accept referrals for those patients waiting over three months, as at present. It will still provide treatments for patients but will target specific backlogs.

Follow-up treatments for existing patients will be provided, as is the normal practice.

The NTPF and the SDU are already working in close collaboration, the Minister said. The NTPF capability will be a core part of the SDU’s performance management role in holding public hospitals to account. The changes being announced today lay the foundation for this transformation and introduce the concept of rigorously-enforced maximum waiting times.

These maximum waits will be systematically reduced in the coming months and years to “deliver the goal of eliminating excessive waiting lists from the Ireland health economy,” the Minister said.

Our Health System could bankrupt our Country

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Our Health System

Our Health System

Health Minister James Reilly has warned that unless reforms are made our healthcare system alone could bankrupt the country.

“Even if we were not facing the dire financial situation this country does face, if we had no plan to reform our health service, the country would be bankrupted by the health system alone,” Dr Reilly told a major health conference in Dublin today.

He said the current level of spending on health services was unsustainable so changes must be made.

The Minister said his promised special delivery unit to tackle hospital waiting lists, which was currently being established, would have representation from the HSE and also from Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Its core focus would be the elimination of waiting lists, the Minister said. A rigorous performance measurement process would be put in place, waiting list times would be monitored on a daily basis, and as Minister he would directly oversee the results.

He reiterated his pledge to achieve a significant reduction in waiting lists within three years .

Dr Reilly said under the Government’s reform plans, hospitals would be paid per patient seen rather than by block grant as was now the case. There would be more transparency and it will be known which hospitals were doing what and which doctors were doing what.

He said ‘money follows the patient’ would be an important step in achieving universal health insurance. Controls would be put in place to ensure the new system did not encourage ‘cherry-picking’  by hospitals.

The Minister said under the new system, everyone would have insurance from their choice of insurer. This insurance would guarantee every citizen equal access to a comprehensive range of hospital and mental health services.

Dr Reilly, who was addressing the National Healthcare Conference 2011, said the purpose of UHI was to achieve equity of access to healthcare for all.

The Minister said the Government had made a commitment to introduce free GP care for the whole population on a phased basis in its first term of office.

He said the Government must ensure there are enough GPs in place to respond to the likely increased demand for services under free GP care for all.

Dr Reilly said he wanted to see greater progress on the roll-out of new primary care teams and new primary care centres. He said a new GP contract would lead to more care shifting from hospitals to the community.

Some work currently done by GPs would move to other primary care staff while GPs would take on new work. Under a new contract, GPs would work in an integrated way with primary care teams.

Dr Reilly said the journey of reform would be towards a health service that all have access to and of which those who work in it were proud.

He said he was putting in place a plan to deal with the A&E problem, and to deal with the winter surges in activity.

The Minister said more diagnostic facilities would be put in place in the community and there would be more chronic illness care taking place in the community. This would take pressure off hospitals.

He said he had asked the NTPF to do a study on the price of beds in nursing homes that would have a full scale of facilities such as physiotherapy, so that patients could be moved out of the hospital setting and nearer to home.

This should free up a considerable number of hospital beds, he said.

The Minister said  the location for the new national children’s hospital, which was currently being reviewed, was a ‘big decision for the country’. He said it had to be ensured that the money was there to complete the the project – all the issues were being reviewed, after which he would make an announcement on the hospital. (Irish Health.com)

3 Hospitals responsible for longest waiting lists in Ireland

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Patient Waiting Lists

Patient Waiting Lists

There are 3 main Hospitals responsible for the longest Surgical waiting lists in Ireland.

Approx 50% of all patients waiting over a year for surgery are under the care of -

Tallaght Hospital

Temple St Children’s Hospital

Midland Regional, Tullamore

This is in accordance with the latest figures from the National Patient Register

 At the end of April, 611 patients were waiting over 12 months for Surgical Procedures.

115 of these were Tallaght Hosp, 79, Temple St and 73, Tullamore.

Some positive news though. Compared to the figures collated from last year, this is a nearly 50% decline in numbers of patients waiting over a year.

A spokesperson for the National Treatment Purchase Fund – NTPF made the point that the average waiting time across all Specialties across the Public system in Ireland for both Surgery and Medicine remains at a historical low of 2-3 months.

The NTPF are now concentrating on the few patients left waiting still over a year for Surgery with the hope they can help in reducing this waiting time.