There were more than 830,000 patients waiting to be seen at an outpatient clinic or waiting for hospital treatment last month, according to the latest figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
This included 84,797 patients waiting for an appointment date for inpatient treatment and 596,265 patients waiting to be seen at an outpatient clinic.
The Department of Health said the figures showed that 492,639 people on the active waiting lists (inpatient/day case, GI scopes and outpatients) were waiting longer than the Sláintecare maximum wait times.
The 2017 Sláintecare report recommended maximum wait times of no more than 12 weeks for an inpatient/day case procedure or GI scope, and 10 weeks for a new outpatient appointment.
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“Additions to waiting lists in the year to date have been higher than projected,” a statement from the department said.
“The Health Service Executive attributes this trend to a number of drivers, including post-pandemic pent-up demand, and highlight it is also the case internationally eg, the NHS in Britain is seeing higher additions compared to previous years.”
The department added there were 3.4 million outpatient and 1.7 million in-patient/day case attendances over the last 12 months.
“In addition to this planned care, our hospital system also treated 1.6 million patients during this same period in emergency care, which represents a 10 per cent increase on 2019 pre-pandemic levels and reflects the ongoing pressure on hospitals from flu surges and increased emergency department attendances,” it said.
“Such pressures have had the expected knock-on impact on scheduled care in many of our hospitals in the first months of this year, which has resulted in some waiting lists temporarily increasing.
“However, there are many examples of individual hospitals delivering significant improvements in waiting times despite such challenges.”
Prof Robert Landers, president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, said there was an opportunity to make “significant improvements” to the State’s hospital capacity challenges over the next two years.
Prof Landers said to do this, the Government “must commit the necessary capital spend in the budget in October to deliver the additional expedited bed capacity announced by the Minister for Health”.
“The State’s forecasted surplus should and must be used for the betterment of patient care – across the totality of the health service, from hospitals to stepdown and homecare services,” he said.
“Only when capacity is increased and additional consultants are appointed will we see treatment volumes in public hospitals match demand and effectively reduce current unmanageable waiting lists on a sustainable basis.
“Consultants believe at least 700 extra hospital beds need to be delivered and opened every year for the next seven years, whilst appointing around an additional 300 permanent consultants on an annual basis, in order to keep patients off trolleys and bring down waiting lists for hospital treatment.”
