More than two-fifths of public patients whose care was organised by the State body designed to reduce waiting lists were facilitated in private hospitals, new figures show.
According to the National Treatment Purchase Fund’s (NTPF) end-of-year update, a record 251,000 public patients will have had operations, procedures, diagnostic scans and consultant appointments arranged by them in 2024, removing them from public hospital waiting lists.
This includes 38,000 in-patient or day case procedures, 118,000 appointments to see a hospital consultant at an outpatient clinic, 25,000 GI scopes and 70,000 diagnostic scans.
The vast majority of these patients have received their care already, with the remaining patients having been given an appointment to be seen within six weeks.
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The latest figure means the body will exceed its patient treatment targets set out in the 2024 Waiting List Action Plan (WLAP) by more than 10 per cent by the end of the year.
The figures from the NTPF are in addition to the 3.3 million outpatients appointments, 1.5 million inpatient appointments and more than 80,000 scopes conducted as part of normal HSE activity this year.
According to the NTPF, some 44 per cent of these public patients for whom it organised care will have been facilitated in private hospitals, with the remainder facilitated through insourcing initiatives, which means using additional capacity in public hospitals.
Furthermore, more than 855,000 patients will have been contacted by the end of the year, resulting in the removal of more than 130,000 patients from waiting lists who no longer require care.
Asked for reasons behind patients no longer needing care, a spokesman for the NTPF said the body does not record patients’ reasons. It could be for a variety of reasons, including changing healthcare needs or having gone private for quicker access to treatment.
“Patients stating they no longer require treatment are removed, ensuring those needing care are seen more promptly, and public hospital waiting lists provide an accurate record of those requiring care helping better inform patient treatment,” the spokesman said.
Under the fair deal scheme, which provides financial support to help pay for the cost of care in a nursing home, the NTPF negotiates with registered private and voluntary nursing homes to agree and record the maximum price they can charge residents in receipt of funding under the scheme.
The NTPF has contracts in place with all 415 homes participating in the fair deal scheme, concluding 299 negotiations in 2024, which is 49 more than in 2023.
The average contract term for nursing homes has decreased from 763 days (two years) in 2019 to 500 days (1.4 years) currently, with a growing trend towards annual contracts, the NTPF said.
This has resulted in an increase in the number of negotiations each year. The average contract price for 2022 was €1,079 and for 2023 was €1,139, the spokesman added.
At the end of November there were 685,518 people on the total acute hospital waiting lists, a slight decrease in comparison with this time last year.
There has also been improvement in waiting times with a 14 per cent reduction in the total number of patients waiting more than 12 months since this time last year, and a 24 per cent in the number waiting more than 18 months.
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