Hospitals offer long-waiting patients treatment options

IN a bid to cut the backlog of patients waiting two years or more for surgery, hospitals are writing directly to them offering the option of being treated under the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).

Almost 80% of people waiting more than 12 months for hospital treatment are based in the east. Up to the end of June 4,641 adults in the region were waiting more than 12 months and more than half are waiting more than two years for treatment.

Four acute hospitals in the region Tallaght, Vincent's, Beaumont and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children have all agreed to write directly to those waiting the longest offering them treatment under the fund.

NTPF director Maureen Lynott said it recently met with Data Protection Commissioner Joe Meade and he

confirmed the hospitals could write directly to patients offering the option of treatment under the fund.

Mr Meade said the hospitals could also supply the NTPF with very basic details about the patients awaiting surgery so the fund could make contact with them instead. He explained such information could be disclosed to the NTPF if it was to be used to progress the treatment for which a patient was waiting.

The NTPF subsequently contacted the four acute hospitals and all agreed to contact their patients directly offering them the option of being treated under the fund.

Ms Lynott said the action being taken by the hospitals was in line with the NTPF's objective that all those waiting longest in the original group of around 8,300 would have received treatment by the year's end.

The NTPF also wanted to hold further discussions with the hospitals on establishing a system where patients would be automatically offered the option of being treated under the fund at certain targeted waiting periods.

Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients' Association said he welcomed the development as he had been concerned about the backlog that had developed in the eastern region.

He said the number of those waiting a long time was still substantial in the eastern region when the NTPF was being used to treat adults waiting over six months in other areas.

"We welcome this development in the management of those waiting a long time and we hope Dublin will catch up on the rest of the country and head towards the health strategy target of having no adult waiting more than 12 months and no child waiting more than six months," he said.

Mr McMahon said the patients' lobby group was also delighted that the NTPF had been approved ring-fenced funding for 2004 in the Government's Book of Estimates so its level of work could be maintained.