Treatment fund fast-track for five acute hospitals

FIVE major acute hospitals with 6,700 patients between them waiting over three months for surgery are being targeted in a new effort to fast-track their treatment under the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).

At yesterday’s meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, the assistant secretary of the Department of Health, Paul Barron, said the department wanted a greater level of co-operation between the hospitals with low referral rates and the NTPF this year.

New figures published by the NTPF show that Letterkenny General Hospital had 2,454 patients waiting more than three months for surgery in January, while Tullamore General Hospital had 1,535.