Ferguson welcomes Nesbitt’s waiting list initiatives including £10m cross-border reimbursement scheme

The Foyle MLA was speaking after Minister Nesbitt made the announcement on Tuesday.

Among the proposals is a Waiting List Reimbursement Scheme.

An initial £10m will be invested in the Scheme, allowing people to claim back costs when they receive treatments outside the North, subject to qualifying criteria.

Ms. Ferguson said: “Tackling the unacceptably high waiting lists across the north is a key Executive priority, and I welcome the Health Minister’s investment plan for how he intends to work towards this following allocations from Finance Minister John O’Dowd.

“Given the recent and very concerning publication of cancer waiting times, the minister must take urgent action to bring red flag referral figures back under target.

“It’s also positive that it was announced today that the Cross Border Directive Scheme — which has helped many patients here access timely healthcare — is to be available from June. This will allow patients who have waited more than two years on waiting lists to access treatment in the south.”

Mr. Nesbitt confirmed that beginning in June 2025, the Waiting List Reimbursement Scheme will apply to procedures obtained in the Republic of Ireland and will subsequently be extended to the rest of the European Union.

The Reimbursement Scheme will be available to patients waiting two years or more on a hospital treatment waiting list. Patients will need prior approval from the Department of Health.

Other initiatives involve:

* Targeting long waits – four years plus – including hip, knee and other orthopaedic treatments; tonsillectomies; hernia treatment; gallbladder removal (lap choles) and colonoscopy.

* Significantly reducing waiting lists for children requiring specialist procedures such as peg tubes, scopes and scoliosis surgery, as well as waiting times for women waiting on gynaecology mesh removal procedures

* Partnership arrangements with independent sector providers to clear outpatient waits of four years plus in Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics; General Surgery; Gynaecology, ENT and other specialties.

* £10m in funding for mega clinics for an estimated 20,000 additional patients. Mega clinics provide groups of patients with a ‘one stop shop’ which can involve, for example, surgical review and anaesthetic preoperative assessment in a single appointment.

* Expansion of red flag and time critical capacity across a range of specialties, including: Endoscopy; Diagnostic Imaging (eg MRI and CT); Urology, Breast Surgery; Dermatology; Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy and Cardiac Surgery.

* Expansion of Primary Care Elective Service capacity in dermatology, minor surgery, and gynaecology. It is estimated that £2.9m would allow the service to see and treat approximately 16,500 patients in 2025/26.

* Partnership working with the voluntary sector to deliver a £500,000 per year Waiting Well Programme to help and support those waiting for treatment and a £1m per year Cancer Charities Programme to deliver cancer work in the community to reduce pressures on statutory services.

Mr. Nesbitt said: “These planned investments reflect the Executive’s ringfencing of up to £215m in this year’s Health budget for waiting list activities – in line with the finalised Programme for Government.

“This breaks down into £85m for red flag and time critical care; £80m for building up capacity to address the long-standing mismatch with demand; and up to £50m to start tackling the backlog in care.

“Investment at this level will need to be sustained for at least five years to bring hospital waiting times down to acceptable levels. We are only at the foothills of what will be a long uphill trek.

“I will provide more details on the different initiatives later this month with publication of an implementation plan for my Department’s Elective Care Framework.”

The Minister continued: “Only £50m of the ringfenced £215m total has involved additional monies for my Department.

“The initiatives being announced today are in large part being funded by monies diverted from my core budget for day to day services. That will have unavoidable consequences for wider health and social care provision.

“In the coming weeks, my Department will publish detailed plans and assessments on the financial pressures this year and the measures that will be needed in both the short and medium terms.”

As the initiatives were announced DUP MLA Diane Dodds raised waiting times for hip operations in the Western Trust.

"The waiting list reduction reimbursement scheme will allow a reimbursement for someone who wants to go to Dublin, Galway or wherever to have their hip fixed if they have been on an HSC waiting list for longer than two years.

"However, that assumes that that person can get the money up front to pay for the treatment. What about a person who has been on an HSC waiting list for eight years?

"I received a letter from the chief executive of the Western Trust that stated that the average waiting time for a routine hip replacement there is nine years. What about a person who has been on that waiting list for a very long time but cannot get the money and will not be able to access the scheme?” she asked.

Mr. Nesbitt replied: “The waiting list reimbursement scheme is just one of a number of mechanisms, as I outlined in my remarks. It is part of a cocktail that will involve using HSC capacity and the independent sector to expand.

"I point out to the Member that the budget for the waiting list reimbursement scheme is £10 million, which means that there is up to £205 million to be used in HSC and the independent sector.

"I agree that there is an equity issue: you have to be able to afford the treatment outside our jurisdiction to be able to claim the money back. To be clear to Members: we reimburse only what the cost of the procedure would have been under HSC; it does not cover travel or accommodation, including that of, say, a partner. However, it is a good scheme.”