A new register for patients on hospital waiting lists will improve their access to treatment, the Minster for Health, Ms Harney, said today.
She was speaking following the announcement by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) of a new online database registering patients on waiting lists. It is due to be rolled out from July next year and fully operational by the following January.
"The new Patient Treatment Register will provide for the first time a true record of actual patients and will tell us the real extent of waiting lists, and more importantly waiting times," Ms Harney said. Having a "credible, accurate picture" of patients on waiting lits and the treatment they await would help the health service to reducve waiting times, she said.
The number of people on waiting lists has been a subject of dispute for many years, with medical organisations providing figures which often differ greatly from those provided by the Department of Health.
The NTPF was put in charge of compiling the information at the start of the year but has struggled to provide accurate and timely information.
The agency today said the present recording and reporting methods varied from hospital to hospital leading to a number of problems. Waiting times were not neccessarily collated; patients were not being account for by name; and statistics were often not reconsilable from on month to the next, it said.
NTPF chief executive Mr Pat O'Byrne said a list which registered people by name rather volume was necessary to develop the single register needed to clarrify where the problems were most acute.
"The Patient Treatment Register will be based on real people, by name, waiting for specific treatment and the length of time they are waiting" he said.
"We need to be able to contact these people and offer them treatment. The register will ensure that everyone - patients, doctors, hospitals and the NTPF - will know who is waiting for treatment and for how long."
The new system will see patient details and changes to their status logged on an online database. Each patient will receive a patient treatment register card when placed on a waiting list and GPs will be able to use information on hospital waiting times when making out-patient referrals.
The NTPF was originally set up to arrange treatment for public patients waiting longer than three months on public hospital waiting lists. It organises treatment in the State or if none is available abroad.
Some 13,000 patients will have been treated by the fund in 2004, bringing the total number treated to date to 23,000.