Press release
Monthly waiting list figures - 11 August 2023
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
New hospital waiting list figures published today by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) show that targeted activity under the Waiting List Action Plan is running ahead of target at the end of July.
We now have 491,324 people on the Active Waiting Lists (inpatient / day case, GI Scopes and outpatients) waiting longer than the Sláintecare maximum wait times.
As at the end of July 2023:
While there was progress made on the Inpatient/Day Case and the GI Scope targets, the increase in the number of outpatients means that the total figure increased slightly compared to the end of June 2023. When compared to June 2022, there has been a c.10% decrease (from 544k to 491k) and a further improvement still of c.22% (from 627k to 491k) when compared to Pandemic Peaks (OPD: February 2021, IPDC & GI Scopes: June 2020) in patients exceeding the Sláintecare targets.
The figures show that, in common with health services across Europe, we continue to see significantly higher additions to waiting lists than projected. The HSE attributes higher than anticipated additions to waiting lists to several factors, including post-pandemic pent-up demand.
The total number of patients treated/removed from the OPD, IPDC and GI Scope waiting lists during the first half of the year was c.31k (c.4%) higher than target, while additions to waiting lists in the same period were c.59k (c.8%) higher than projected. Additions to waiting lists are also c.92k (c.12%) higher than in the same period in 2022 and 138.9k (c.20%) higher than the same period in 2019 (which was pre-pandemic).
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 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.1.7 million patients during this same period in emergency (‘unscheduled’) care, which represents a 11% 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 have had the expected knock-on impact on scheduled care in many of our hospitals in the first half 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.
For example, over the past year, University Hospital Limerick has reduced the number of patients waiting over 18 months for an OPD appointment by 87%, from 14,644 to 1,941, Our Lady's Hospital Navan has reduced the number of patients waiting over 18 months for an OPD appointment by 70%, from 2,129 to 629, and Mayo University Hospital has reduced the number of patients waiting for IPDC procedures by 47%, from 1,281 to 674.
The 2017 Houses of the Oireachtas Sláintecare report recommended maximum wait times of no more than 12 weeks for an inpatient / day case (IPDC) procedure or GI Scope and 10 weeks for a new outpatient (OPD) appointment.
The publication of monthly waiting list and activity figures by the NTPF and HSE follows the launch of the 2023 Waiting List Action Plan on 7 March by the Minister for Health. The 2023 Plan continues the multi-annual approach to addressing waiting lists that commenced in Q4 2021 and details 30 actions focused on delivering capacity, reforming scheduled care, and enabling scheduled care reform. The 2023 Plan will fund the HSE and NTPF to reduce waiting lists by a further 10% this year as well as continuing to significantly reduce waiting times towards the Sláintecare recommended targets.
Date: 3 August 2023
CHI at Temple St have reduced the number of patients waiting over 18 months for an OPD appointment by 51% in the last year, from 3,468 to 1,698.