Minister for Health views progress on the development of Surgical Hubs as NTPF publishes monthly waiting list figures

The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly today visited the site of the South Dublin Surgical Hub to view progress on the development. Four theatres to deliver additional capacity for day-cases are being developed at the site of the former Mount Carmel maternity hospital. Patients are expected to begin being treated at the surgical hub in the second quarter of this year.

Speaking following the site visit, Minister Donnelly said:

Since the Reeves Centre in Tallaght opened in December 2020 it has contributed to:

• a 17% reduction in the total day-case waiting list at Tallaght University Hospital
• three-in-four patients waiting for a day case procedure are waiting less than the 12-week Sláintecare target
• 97% are waiting less than nine months

New hospital waiting list figures published today by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) underline the advancements made on overall waiting list reduction for the second year in a row, and more importantly, the progress made in addressing long waiting times.

The total waiting list exceeding the 10- and 12-week Sláintecare targets of 458,201 is an 11% (57,082) reduction, surpassing the 10% reduction targeted last year. Since the pandemic peaks there has been a 27% reduction in the number of people waiting longer than the Sláintecare targets, which equates to nearly 170,000 people.

2023 also saw a reduction of almost one third (32%) in those waiting longer than 12 months, which is also a reduction of some 60% since the COVID-19 peak.

This progression is striking given the challenging backdrop, in common with health services across Europe, of continuing significantly higher additions to waiting lists than projected.

As at the end of December, the total number of patients removed from the OPD, IPDC and GI Scope waiting list was almost 5% higher than target, with 11% more patients removed from the waiting list than in 2022.

The rate of waiting list additions in 2023 significantly exceeded projections and previous years. Additions were 8% higher than projected, 12% higher than in 2022 and almost 23% higher than in 2019. The Health Service Executive (HSE) and other health services attribute higher than anticipated additions to waiting lists to several factors, including post-pandemic pent-up demand.

As at the end of December 2023:

• 50,194 people are exceeding the 12-week inpatient / day-case (IPDC) target which is a 3% increase compared to the end of November 2023
• 8,680 people are exceeding the 12-week GI Scope target which is a 0.2% decrease compared to the end of November 2023
• 399,327 people are exceeding the 10-week outpatient (OPD) target, which is a 1.7% decrease compared to the end of November 2023

As of the end of December 2023, c.671,000 patients were on the active hospital waiting lists, a decrease of c.3% (19,000) in 2023.

The latest hospital activity report published monthly by the HSE is now available online. This gives regular insight into acute activity levels, with millions of patients being seen and treated annually within our hospital system alone.

The health service is treating significantly more patients. For the most recently available 12 months of data, there were c.3.5 million outpatient and c.1.8 million inpatient / day-case attendances. In addition to this planned (‘scheduled’) care, our hospital system also treated c.1.6 million patients during this same period in emergency (‘unscheduled’) care, which represents a c.8% increase on 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels and reflects the ongoing pressure on hospitals and increased Emergency Department (ED) attendances, particularly amongst older people.

Such pressures had the expected knock-on impact on scheduled care in many of our hospitals in the first half of last year, which resulted in some waiting lists temporarily increasing. However, there were many examples of individual hospitals delivering significant improvements in waiting times, despite such challenges.

For example, over the past year, University Hospital Limerick (UHL) has reduced the number of patients waiting over 15 months for OPD appointments by 82%, Mayo University Hospital has reduced the number of patients waiting over nine months for an IPDC procedure by 75% and Mater Misericordiae University Hospital has reduced the number of patients waiting over 13 weeks for colonoscopy or OGD procedures by 68%.

The Department of Health is working with the HSE to finalise both the End of Year Report for 2023, as well as the new Waiting List Action Plan (WLAP) 2024, which will take account of learnings from 2023 as well as the funding envelope provided for 2024. For 2024, funding totalling €407 million is being allocated to tackle waiting lists with €332 million of this being allocated to the 2024 WLAP, and the remaining €75 million being targeted at various measures to alleviate community/primary care waiting lists.

The funding will encompass core HSE activity, additionality provided through both the NTPF and the HSE, as well as progressing new service developments to further reform elective care, and will facilitate the next steps in the multi-annual approach towards achieving timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care for everyone, where and when they need it, in line with Sláintecare reforms.