The National Treatment Purchase Fund has been asked to come up with proposals to tackle hospital outpatient waiting times. In some cases patients are waiting years to see a hospital consultant in outpatients after being referred by their GP.
The Minister for Health, Ms Harney, made the announcement yesterday as she faced further criticism for her decision not to publish national waiting list figures until 2006.
The decision stemmed from a recommendation by the treatment fund, which is now responsible for managing waiting lists. It claimed publishing the figures would be pointless as they had not been validated.
A day after it was condemned by Opposition parties, the decision was also criticised by the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association (IHCA) and the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO).
Mr Finbarr Fitzpatrick, secretary general of the IHCA, said the Department of Health had twice announced the validation of waiting lists during the tenure of former health ministers. "We are, therefore, surprised the figures are not being published. It creates a vacuum and we don't agree with having a vacuum," he said.
Mr Liam Doran, INO general secretary, said he was concerned that the failure to publish the latest figures was more to do with avoiding stark numbers being seen by the public than dealing with the issue.
Ms Harney stood over her decision and said new procedures were being followed to ensure the figures will be accurate when they are eventually published.
She insisted the purpose of having lists was not to provide statistics but to ensure people got treatment. However, current lists were effectively statistics which did not tell anything about patients, who they were or what their requirements were.
This was going to change with the setting up of a national patient treatment register. All patients from now on, when told they need a procedure, will be given a card and on it will be a number for the treatment purchase fund, which will arrange private treatment for them if they are left waiting for more than three months.
The fund has already arranged such treatment for 23,000 public patients. Its difficulty has been getting access to some patients still on long waiting lists.
However, under the new system this will not be a problem as it will have contact details for all patients once they go on waiting lists.