One of the pledges of this government was to shake-up the health service to reduce waiting lists and waiting times. It was a bold ambition and was never going to be easy task. The pressure on the health service is immense, because of both an aging population and advances in treatments available. Nonetheless, we promised to make things better and people are right to ask: What improvements have been achieved?

In the past six months my department set about identifying priority areas and the ways to tackle them. I'm pleased to say we have made good progress.

Sometimes only a small change is needed to make a big difference in people's lives. Through better management and smarter procurement practices, out-of-stock medicines are now the exception rather than the norm.  The list has gone down from triple to single digits. Needless to say this is an issue we must keep on top of. Now that better management has been enacted it is important to maintain good practice. I remember the frustration caused when people couldn't get hold of medicines in the past; we don't want to go back there.

We have also changed practices to bring about a fall in a number of waiting lists. The Twilight Initiative has worked well. We have introduced longer hours during which interventions are carried out. Operating sessions have been extended from mornings only to include afternoons and Saturdays. This increases productivity and means people can get their interventions sooner, relieving them of pain and allowing them to get on with life.

There is actually an economic benefit here. Patients don't want long periods of discomfort. They want to get back on their feet and return to work.

There are many fields of medicine where we need to bring about improvements but one field already showing remarkable results is ophthalmology. The number of cataract operations has increased from sixty five per week to ninety per week. In just five months, up until October 2014, the waiting list for cataract operations has been halved. 

Significant investment has been made in the MRI department. MRI scans are an important tool for medical diagnosis. Indeed, they have for become a run-of-the-mill test, with the demand increasing from nine hundred requests per month in October 2013 to more than one thousand two hundred in September 2014. The Medical Imaging Department at Mater Dei has achieved the impossible, not only coping with this increase in demand but by reducing the waiting list in an impressive manner.  Fifty five MRI tests are being carried out daily, up from thirty daily. The next target is to reduce waiting times to three months.

Even more impressive results have been achieved in the field of cardiology. The past few months have seen remarkable improvements. For coronary angiograms (x-ray of the heart) the waiting time has gone down from six months to practically zero; patients are being seen in less than a week. Progress has also been achieved in Echocardiograms, a test that uses sound waves to create pictures of the heart. In-patient echocardiograms are now being done within 24 hours.

It is important to ease the path for patients needing treatment, so it is particularly pleasing that Gozitan patients are having their echocardiograms performed at Gozo General Hospital, where again the waiting time is now practically zero.

When it comes to outpatient echocardiograms, the waiting time has gone down from nearly 3 years to 1 year. We will not rest until we can reduce that figure further.

While progress in treatments is always welcome we should never lose sight of the need for preventive health care. Not only should we empower family doctors to actively participate in their patients' cardiac care but we should encourage everyone, from educators to those in the food business, to promote a healthier and more heart-friendly life.

We are striving to restore faith in the health service by aspiring to the highest level of excellence.  We are confident of success not least because our strategy is supported by dedicated employees who are, after all, the backbone of the health system.

We should all be happy with these improvements but I cannot say that I am completely satisfied. We have achieved a lot but we will need to work even harder in the months and years ahead. An aging society means increased pressure on health services so the task for everyone is to show even more ingenuity. However, our commitment to a free, efficient health care service remains steadfast.

Chris Fearne is the parliamentary secretary responsible for health