Varadkar claims major progress on waiting lists

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar claims to have substantially achieved his goal of ensuring no patient is on a waiting list for 18 months.

By the end of June, the target set by Mr Varadkar, 1,988 patients were waiting for an outpatient appointment for more than 18 months out of a total of 402,000 patients on the list.

Just 19 patients were waiting for inpatient or day-case treatment out of a total list of 67,000.

This equates to 99.6 per cent achievement of the target for reducing wait times, according to the Minister’s spokesman.

This involved the treatment of 4,900 patients and appointments for 48,000 outpatients.

He said the remaining 4 per cent of patients on the waiting lists had appointments scheduled this month.

According to the spokesman, the HSE carried out a “validation” of the waiting lists directly with hospital groups, separate from the usual reporting process engaged in by hospitals.

Mr Varadkar set the 18-month target last January and also aims to have no one waiting for more than 15 months by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, new figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund show a slight easing in overall waiting lists.

There are now 402,156 people waiting for an outpatient appointment, compared with 414,778 in May.