2,000 patients refuse treatment offered by national fund
Figures revealed today indicate that over 2,000 patients on hospital waiting lists declined treatment offered privately by the National Treatment Purchase Fund last year.
Just over 2,700 patients on the public hospital outpatient list did not respond at all to offers made.
The figures have been greeted with surprise by Pat O’Byrne, Chief Executive of the NTPF who said they raised questions about the "real need" for the patients in question to be on the lists in the first place.
Mr O’Byrne said the numbers of those who have died waiting while on the list would be a very low number.
The reasons why patients declined faster outpatient treatment under the treatment purchase fund last year "included unwillingness to go to another hospital or patients wishing to stay with their original hospital".
The figures show 20,630 people on outpatient waiting lists were contacted by the fund last year, and 10,569 accepted an offer of an appointment and were removed from the waiting lists. Some 38% of them, when seen, required surgery.
Meanwhile 5,331 of the patients who were contacted were removed from the waiting list as they said they no longer needed an appointment.
Outpatient waiting lists are the lists patients are put on once they are referred by their GP to see a hospital consultant, and can be very long.
It is aiming to tackle the longest waiting times first.
