spending on health care by 6.6% since the onset of the Global Financial Crisis according to the OECD's 2013 Health Report. As a consequence, waiting times for treatment have increased. According to the Euro health consumer index waiting times for emergency treatment, minor operations, and CT scans, in Irish hospitals in 2015 were the worst in Europe, though the Irish health system was ranked 21st out of 35 European countries. The Health Service Executive accepted that it lacked the capacity to provide sufficiently accessible health services. It was working to ensure that no one had to wait more than 18 months for an outpatient appointment, or inpatient treatment. According to the index, reports by patients on waiting times were considerably more pessimistic than official Irish waiting-time statistics. The Euro health consumer index 2018 report continues to rank the accessibility of Ireland's Health system as the worst in Europe, with the overall ranking as 22nd of 35. In 2007, 76% of inpatients were admitted to hospital for operations immediately, 11% had to wait up to one month, 4% had to wait up to three months, 1% had to wait up to six months and 4% had to wait for over six months for operations. Waiting times at the National Rehabilitation Hospital, the only such facility in the country, can be one year. For outpatients, 23% were seen on time, 44% were seen within 30 minutes, 18% waited more than an hour and 7% waited two hours. In 2007, for GP services, 31% were seen without an appointment, 38% received an appointment the same day, 28% received a next day appointment and 3% had to wait over two days to be seen. The National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) was set up in 2002 for those waiting over three months for an operation or procedure, and as a result over 135,000 patients on waiting lists have been treated so far. The NTPF involves the government paying for public patients to be treated for free in a private hospital in Ireland, or sometimes abroad if necessary. The NTPF has reduced waiting times for procedures to an average of between two and five months (the average in 2009 is 2.4 months), compared to between two and five years in 2002. There are cases where essential care is needed urgently but not made available by the HSE under their NTPF, and contrary to relevant judgements by