The recently appointed Minister for Health, Simon Harris, has today announced a new five-point ‘action plan’ to attempt to reduce hospital waiting lists by the end of 2016.
This comes with the background of a whopping 530,000 people waiting for an appointment, surgery, or procedure at the end of July.
Mr. Harris said “There’s absolutely a need to make sustained investment in waiting list initiatives. I’m going to put my hands up and say that I genuinely believe it was a significant mistake to deactivate the NTPF (National Treatment Purchase Fund),” he said, referring to the independent body which had its funding slashed in 2014.
“Whatever people think of the ideology, if you’re sitting at home today and you’re in need of an operation, what you don’t want is a big ideological debate, what you want is action.
“We now have a situation in relation to waiting lists where we clearly need targeted, funded actions.”
According to the minister, there will be 50m allocated for ‘waiting list initiatives’ in October’s budget.