Hospitals will be rewarded or punished next year, depending on performance relating to the Waiting List Initiative, according to the Minister for Health, Mr Cowen. An allocation of £20 million to reduce waiting lists was announced in the Budget yesterday.
Mr Cowen said in future, patients would be informed of the waiting times at each hospital for different procedures so they could have a choice about where they are treated.
This, he said, was part of the measures to be introduced, following the report of the group he set up to examine the problem of waiting lists. A total of £3 million out of the £20 million is to be retained by the Department. Work will be contracted out to hospitals and the money will be used to "reward those who get the job done".
As well as the additional £8 million announced specifically for waiting lists - on top of the £12 million originally earmarked - Mr Cowen said the Budget had provided £2 million for accident and emergency departments and a total of £22 million for services for elderly people.
These allocations combined, he said, would work towards reducing the waiting lists. At present in the hospital system elderly people inappropriately placed in acute hospitals make up the equivalent of 150,000 bed days each year. According to the latest figures there are 35,800 people awaiting treatment. Mr Cowen would not say how many he believed would be treated as a result of the extra money.
Following on the recommendations of the waiting list review group, he said, the Department was identifying which hospitals had extra capacity, as well as validating existing lists. Mr Cowen said in the first year of the Budget accountability legislation, health boards and voluntary hospitals had learnt "a valuable lesson".
Asked about the situation in Tallaght Hospital where there are reported overruns of between £20 million and £35 million Mr Cowen said that like other hospitals, this would be a "first strike" on next year's Tallaght budget. Mental handicap received an additional revenue funding of £12 million in 1999, with a full year cost in 2000 of £18 million. The Minister said this would provide 320 new residential places, 80 new respite places, 200 new day places, and health-related support services for children with autism.
Changes to medical card eligibility for people aged 70 or over were also announced. The improvement, which will be introduced over a three-year period, will begin in March next year, with an increase of one third in the guidelines.
The home help service is to be extended to cover more people, with an investment of £4.5 million. The minimum rate of payment for all home helps will be brought up to £3 per hour from the start of April. An allocation of £1 million will be used for the support of carers and local voluntary groups who support the interest of carers, said Mr Cowen.
Mr Cowen said the total approved expenditure for the health services in 1999 will be around £3.394 billion excluding capital, an increase of 11.3 per cent.