08 July 2005
Financial penalties will be imposed on Northern Ireland health trusts that do not treat patients within target times, health minister Shaun Woodward has announced.
With immediate effect, hospitals must pay for treatment to be carried out elsewhere when patients are not offered treatment within a year.
From March 2006, target treatment times will be cut for cardiac surgery and cataracts to six months and for hips and knees to nine months.
Woodward, speaking to staff at Belfast's Royal Hospital, said that 'clearing systems' will be introduced to cut waiting times further.
Patients not offered treatment at a local hospital within nine months will be allocated treatment elsewhere.
To bring down outpatient waiting lists, patients will initially be referred to 'special interest' primary care professionals, with the aim of avoiding unnecessary referrals to hospital consultants.
Woodward said: 'I want to put on record that we will from today change the system in Northern Ireland which too easily tolerates patients waiting longer for their hospital treatment than elsewhere in the UK.'
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