All cash and no conditions? Fundamental questions about NTPF processes must be answered by Minister for Health
All cash and no conditions? Fundamental questions about NTPF processes must be answered by Minister for Health - The Labour Party
Responding to this morning’s reports about Beaumont Hospital, Labour Health spokesperson Deputy Marie Sherlock said it is now critical that the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) processes must be overhauled and that the Minister must disclose all information available to her about investigations and reviews concerning NTPF related funding.
Deputy Sherlock said:
“The State is entrusting close on quarter of billion euro to the NTPF this year to reduce waiting lists and there is little or no transparency or oversight on this. The NTPF is supposed to administer waiting list validation processes and quality assurance and audit processes and yet from reading the reports, it appears there is a failure in both. Not only is there an apparent misuse of public funding at stake here, I believe there are also cold hard consequences for the patients in terms of their clinicians not being able to access additional funding to provide the best possible care. Clinicians in Beaumont are saying that they believe they have lost out on important additional health programme funding because of how their routine work was classified and billed.
“Ultimately, these issues are about the delivery of vital health services to those most in need, waiting longest and crucially those who cannot afford to join the shorter queue with the benefit of health insurance.
“The NTPT should only ever have been a temporary measure but instead has become a lucrative permanent crutch of a under resourced public health system.
“The NTPF has mushroomed in recent years from €55m in 2018 to an allocation of €230m in 2025- an overhaul of how it operates and the scrutiny of its transactions and processes are now vital.”