It will be progressed as quickly as possible. I intend to make funding available to continue with the work in the capital plan for next year. As projects progress and we move through the various stages, the costs involved increase, as the Deputy will be aware. In the short term, before the new development is in place, we are making available many more resources for the emergency team. There are more emergency medicine consultants, healthcare assistants and nurses, and also more emergency medicine. Additional beds h…

I thank the Deputy for the question. I was delighted yesterday to secure Government agreement on both those elective hospitals. I know Deputy Connolly has tabled a question on the Galway one. It is worth spending a moment to reflect on what a difference these hospitals will make. The Cork hospital, which, as Deputy Burke will be aware, will be at Sarsfield Court, will have nine operating theatres, a number of outpatient clinics and a lot of diagnostics facilities. It will employ more than 300 staff. Critically, bec…

I fully agree. If we think through what is required now, while five years seems like a very long time, and, obviously, we would love these facilities to be in place tomorrow, tendering for detailed design, the detailed design itself, securing planning, tendering for construction, the construction itself and then commissioning, unfortunately, take quite a bit of time. One of the advantages we have on both sites is that it is our land and we are not looking to take private land with any complexities that might entail…

I fully agree. I will add two points to that. The other thing we secured agreement on yesterday was five new surgical hubs. These are based on the Reeves day surgery centre in Tallaght hospital, which has been successful. It consists of four operating theatres for day cases only. It has not been fully open for two years, yet Tallaght hospital has seen a 58% reduction in its day case list over that period. Believe it or not, the number of patients waiting more than three months for day case surgery in Tallaght has f…

A very large amount of money, €443 million, has been allocated. The figure for this year is €350 million, while there was a lower figure in quarter 4 of last year. All of this is beginning to accelerate and provide improvements for patients. Of the €443 million for next year, €123 million is recurrent funding being sought to improve and speed up various patient pathways. Dr. Colm Henry, the chief clinical officer, is taking the lead on those. There is €240 million to continue tackling the waiting list backlogs. Thi…

The NTPF is working very well. We funded it to provide treatment for any patient waiting more than six months for up to 15 high-volume procedures. That will increase to 20 high-volume procedures. I am pleased to note that as of the end of last month, 80% of patients waiting for more than six months for these procedures have been authorised for NTPF treatment. It is going very well. How are the bottlenecks in patient flow being identified? Comprehensive work was done last year and this year across the system. It inv…

I thank the Deputy for her comments on the elective hospital. The national cancer centre is being looked at. I have had meetings on it in the past few weeks. It is an important project. As the Deputy rightly says, it is one of several significant investments in healthcare in Galway. We had agreement yesterday on the elective hospital. A proposal, which I support, is in for a seven-storey emergency and women and infants' block, which is actually the size of a small hospital. It is a huge piece. I have been discussin…

The proposal is being progressed and is working its way through the various stages. The public spending code is a very laborious process. It was put in place after the cost overruns at the national children's hospital. There is a balance to be struck between managing the costs in the public interest and trying to build facilities as quickly as possible. I would like to see these things moving a lot quicker. I do not think we are good at putting in place healthcare infrastructure quickly enough. When it gets put in …

I am more than happy to look at whether there is a discrepancy in the answers that the Deputy has received. The update I have received is that the submission will be going to the property steering committee shortly. I am more than happy to look at that. Importantly, I reiterate that I have met the clinicians and I have visited Galway a few times. I was there recently and we talked about various capital investments. I have met colleagues from around the House to discuss the issue. I fully acknowledge the strength of…

There are two sides to this. I would agree with Deputy Conway-Walsh's comments and indeed, those from the clinicians and the hospital that we need more beds and facilities. However, there is an awful lot more that they could be doing with what they already have. For example, the last time I met with the team not long ago, they said that they needed more diagnostic suites and theatres. I asked how often they run the diagnostic and theatre services. Broadly, those services are run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Fri…

I thank Deputy Matthews for the question. One of the locations in which the ophthalmic service is provided is in our own constituency in the Deputy's home town of Bray. I value the important role that community ophthalmologists play. I am fully committed to the development of the community service to facilitate the integrated provision of eye care in local communities. As the Deputy said, the community ophthalmic medical services treatment scheme was established as a pilot quite some time ago in 2004. There are fou…

It is a valuable service. I hope the Deputy got taken care of. Areas covered include acute treatments such as inflammatory or infectious eye conditions, chronic treatments such as cataracts, pre- and post-op care, age-related macular degeneration, surgical treatments such as corneal ulcer surgery and eyelid injuries. The treatment fees are set out in schedule 3 of SI 274 from 2013. The fees are set at either €59.51 or €75.76 depending on the service. The payments were reduced in 2009 and they were reduced again in …

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. The HSE provides routine eye examinations and glasses for people with medical cards under the community ophthalmic services scheme. The Deputy is talking about the medical card scheme rather than private provision.

Both. Okay, thank you. With regard to the medical card, the service is provided by optical practitioners who are contracted by the HSE. This allows people the freedom to choose a practice and time that is most suitable for them. Timely access to services is an important part of maintaining good optical health. While the schedules of private practices are beyond the remit of the HSE, the HSE does process the applications for reimbursement. The HSE has advised that while most applications are processed in five to ten…

There are two things. The Deputy's numbers may be correct. The information I received from the Department is that about 20 graduate per year. One thing that will help is that it is proposed that the standard eye exam fee will increase for medical card holders. That will mean more money will come into the practices and they may be able to offer more attractive salaries. The issue is structural; it is not a short-term issue. I want to see a doubling of college places for healthcare professionals. We are approaching i…

I believe there is. The health and social care professional field is a diverse group of professionals in skills and training. As the Deputy said, we are not talking about a lot. We have 20 graduates a year and we probably need 40 a year, given the scale of what we are looking at. We are looking at nursing places moving from 2,000 to 4,000. The scale of the move from 20 to 40 should be able to be facilitated quickly. In the meantime, private practices will just have to look at international markets to see what they …

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The Protected Disclosures Act 2014 aims to protect people who raise concerns about wrongdoing in their workplaces. The Act provides for redress for employees who are dismissed or otherwise penalised for having reported possible wrongdoings in the workplace. In general, people who receive the protected disclosures or those who subsequently deal with them may not disclose any information to other persons that may identify the person who made the disclosure. I am, therefore, …

I move amendment No. 1: In page 5, line 12, to delete “disclosure meeting” and substitute the following: “disclosure meeting; to provide for the mandatory open disclosure, by health services providers, of Part 5 reviews carried out in accordance with this Act; to provide, in the interest of the common good, for certain restrictions on the use of the information provided in such disclosures that are made in accordance with this Act and of any apologies made in the course of such disclosures and the use of any other …

That is no problem. I thank the Acting Chair. The overarching intention of the Bill, as colleagues will be aware, is to embed a culture of open disclosure in our health and social services. However, it is fair to say that many aspects of the Bill have been informed by the very serious learnings from what happened with CervicalCheck. This includes the need to ensure accountability by service providers and clinicians in carrying out open disclosure to patients and their families. In that regard, the Bill and its inte…

I thank the Acting Chair for her indulgence. I will finish on this. In essence, we are saying that we will have best international practice - anonymised programmatic audits - so that our screening services can get better. Every patient who receives a cancer diagnosis must be offered a review that has been created to work for the patient. The Bill states that the results of that review must be disclosed to the patient. My view is that this works for patients and puts Ireland as one of the few countries in the world …