Posted online: Feb 18th, 2010

The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) has claimed that the 31% increase in the number of patients being treated in Northern Ireland in 2009 was due to a backlog at Letterkenny General Hospital.
The NTPF said that the upsurge in treatments carried out in Northern Ireland was the result of an unnecessary situation whereby “too many” public patients were on the waiting list at Letterkenny General Hospital. There were 1024 patients treated in Northern Ireland under the NTPF last year, a significant increase on the 708 patients treated in 2008. The figure for 2009 was also a five year high.
A spokesperson for the NTPF confirmed that the majority of patients treated in Northern Ireland had been on the waiting list in Letterkenny General Hospital.
“The vast majority of NTPF patients treated in Northern Ireland come from the waiting list of Letterkenny Hospital,” the spokesperson said.
“Letterkenny had an issue during 2008/2009 where too many public patients were needlessly waiting for more than 12 months. The NTPF repeatedly highlighted this and worked with Letterkenny to get these patients treated.”
The number of people on the waiting list had reached 1200 in 2008, the NTPF spokesperson revealed, but this had been reduced to just 30.
The Post contacted the HSE for a response but no comment was available at the time of going to press.