David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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162. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to increase capacity across relevant paediatric specialties to deliver treatment for persons with scoliosis and spina bifida who have been waiting for a long time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7842/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge that waiting times for many hospital procedures and appointments are unacceptably long. It is of particular regret that children can experience long waiting times for orthopaedic treatment, especially for time sensitive procedures, and I remain acutely aware of the impact that this has on children and their families. I remain committed to working to reduce waiting times for patients.

Children with a range of needs rely on the orthopaedic service of Children’s Health Ireland, for example children with Spina Bifida, hip deformity, and other orthopaedic needs. The complex patient needs of these children remains at the forefront of service provision.

Two months ago, I met with the Scoliosis Co-Design Group. This is a well-established and successful group which facilitates a multi-disciplinary approach to service improvement. The group includes members from advocacy groups, as well as orthopaedic consultants from Children's Health Ireland, and senior management from across the CHI sites. Further to this meeting I requested that Children's Health Ireland (CHI) draw up a plan to improve waiting times for orthopaedic services, particularly for those children with conditions such as scoliosis and Spina Bifida where time is a crucial factor in ensuring that these children have a positive outcome from their surgeries.

Last week I convened a meeting with the clinical teams from Crumlin, Temple Street, and Cappagh Orthopaedic Hospital, along with senior management from these hospitals and the HSE. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the draft orthopaedic waiting list plan and to ensure that an appropriate plan with ambitious and attainable activity levels was being produced. The plan will be funded in the context of the wider waiting list action plan for 2022 and will include additional activity to reduce the spinal orthopaedic waiting list through the use of theatres at Crumlin, Temple Street, and Cappagh. In the context of the waiting list action plan additional capacity will also be sought in the private sector to work towards reducing paediatric orthopaedic waiting times.

In terms of broader services for children with Spina Bifida, CHI have advised the Department of Health that CHI at Temple Street has doubled capacity from 2 Multidisciplinary (MDT) clinics to 4 MDT outpatient clinics per month. This will improve access to specialists in the area of Neurodisability, Neurosurgery, Orthopaedics, Urology, Occupational therapy, Physiotherapy, and Neuropsychology. The clinics also provide access to a Medical Social worker and a Clinical Nurse Specialist. CHI has advised the Department that this capacity increase is expected to provide each child with an annual review and will reduce the waiting time for follow up appointments.

The 2022 waiting list action plan, which I will be bringing to Government shortly, builds on the successes of the short-term 2021 plan that ran from September to December last year. The 2021 plan was developed by my Department, the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) and was driven and overseen by a senior governance group co-chaired by the Secretary General of my Department and the CEO of the HSE and met fortnightly. This rigorous level of governance and scrutiny of waiting lists has continued into this year with the oversight group evolving into the Waiting List Task Force. It has produced a comprehensive 2022 waiting list action plan which will set out high-level targets for waiting list improvement including dedicated funding for service reform, patient pathway improvement, and important significant additionality to substantially reduce the backlog of patients waiting. The Task Force will meet regularly to drive progress of the 2022 plan.

This is the first stage of an ambitious multi-annual Waiting List plan, which is currently under development in my Department. Between them, these plans will work to support short, medium, and long term initiatives to reduce waiting times and provide the activity needed in years to come.