National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) inpatient/day case outsourcing and insourcing

The National Treatment Fund (NTPF) are a corporate body that have been set up to help address waiting times issues across the country. Its key functions are:

• Arranging for the provision of hospital treatment to classes of person determined by the minister;
• Collecting, collating and validating information on persons waiting for public hospital treatment;
• Performing any other function assigned by the Minister for Health, since July 2012 this includes responsibility for the publication of outpatient waiting lists.

Outsourcing

The NTPF have a basket of inpatient procedures that that they invite tenders from the private sector for. The range of procedures for 2019 includes:

• Angiograms
• Cataracts
• Cystoscopies
• Dental
• Hip & Knee replacements
• Laparoscopic cholecystectomies
• Septoplasties
• Skin lesions
• Tonsils
• Veins

THE NTPF identify the longest waiting patients from the hospital waiting list and direct the hospital to make the offer to the patient. During 2018 approximately 4,000 patients on the GUH waiting list received treatment through this process.

Insourcing

This is a process whereby hospital/services can submit bids to provide additional in-house capacity in order to reduce waiting list sizes and the length of time patients are waiting. GUH has ran/is running a number outpatient and inpatient/day case NTPF supported initiatives:

• Plastic Surgery 'See & Treat' (one stop clinic)
• Additional ENT clinics
• Additional Flexible Cystoscopy sessions