Madam, - The claim made in the Dáil last week that waiting time figures put forward by the National Treatment Purchase Fund are "sanitised" because they "do not refer to medical cases" is entirely incorrect.
The Patient Treatment Register has, since its establishment, clearly reported waiting-list figures for both surgical and medical cases. The NTPF then has a particular focus on arranging treatment for public patients who have been waiting more than three months for surgery. The NTPF has arranged treatment for more than 90,000 public patients to date.
Other reports this week citing "new" waiting-list figures as evidence of growing problems in the public hospital system are also inaccurate and misleading. There has been no change in average waiting times for operations. Patients are not waiting longer than previously reported, nor has there been an increase in the total numbers waiting for treatment.
Average waiting times for the most common procedures in public hospitals are two to five months. The median waiting time, for all procedures within the system, is 3.4 months. This is a significant reduction from an average of two to five years before the establishment of the National Treatment Purchase Fund in 2002. - Yours, etc,
PAT O'BYRNE, Chief Executive, National Treatment Purchase Fund, Dublin 2.