More than 2,000 public patients on hospital outpatient waiting lists, who were offered treatment privately by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) last year, declined the offer and chose to continue waiting, according to figures published today.
In addition, 2,712 patients on the public hospital outpatient waiting lists did not respond at all to offers of speedier treatment through the fund.
Pat O'Byrne, chief executive of the National Treatment Purchase Fund, said the figures were surprising and raised questions about the "real need" for these patients to be on outpatient waiting lists in the first place.
Asked if those who had not responded may have died waiting, given that it can take years to get an outpatient appointment, Mr O'Byrne said he believed the numbers of people in that category would be very low.
He was speaking following the publication yesterday of the fund's report on how it tackled outpatient waiting lists in 2007.
The report said 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".
Overall the report shows 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 per cent 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. They can be very long.
For example, the national treatment purchase fund said it managed to reduce the outpatient waiting time for a surgical dermatology consultation at Tallaght hospital, Dublin, from five years to three years last year.
Figures released recently to The Irish Timesunder the Freedom of Information Act showed there were more than 139,000 patients on outpatient waiting lists at 24 hospitals across the State in 2006/2007, and in some cases patients were waiting up to eight years in the west to be seen.
The fund's latest report shows most patients who were removed by it from outpatient waiting lists last year were from the west.
It is aiming to tackle the longest waiting times first.
Meanwhile, the report points out that not all public hospitals are referring patients for speedier outpatient appointments to the fund.
In addition to treating outpatients, the National Treatment Purchase Fund arranged operations and other procedures for 22,000 inpatients last year.