Press release
Monthly waiting list figures - July 2024
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) demonstrate the continuing demands for care in our acute hospitals and underline progress achieved through the multi-annual action plan approach implemented by Government to address rising waiting lists and long wait times. The latest hospital activity report has also been published by the Health Service Executive (HSE) which shows increased levels of activity in the delivery of scheduled and unscheduled care in acute hospitals.
The July figures show that there have been significant reductions in the number of patients waiting longest. There has been a c.30% reduction in the total number of patients waiting over 18 months since this time last year.
Improvements in terms of the length of time patients are waiting can also be seen in progress towards Sláintecare targets. Since the pandemic peaks, there has been a c.24% reduction in the number of people waiting longer than the Sláintecare targets, which equates to approximately 148,000 people. There are now 478,900 people waiting longer than the 10- and 12- week targets, while 233,291 people are waiting within the target times.
There have also been improvements in average waiting times, which have reduced by 1.4 months in comparison with last year. OPD has reduced by 1.6 months. IPDC reduced by 0.7 months and GI Scope reduced by 0.1 months.
Our acute hospitals are delivering higher levels of activity and treating many more patients. The latest hospital activity report published by the HSE for May 2023 to April 2024 gives insight into acute activity levels, with millions of patients being seen and treated annually within our hospital service. The report outlines that there were c.3.7 million outpatient and c.1.9 million Inpatient and Day Case attendances during the period covered by the report. In comparison with the levels of activity delivered in the full year 2022, these figures represent increases of c. 9%.
In addition to this planned (‘scheduled’) care, our hospital system also treated c.1.8 million patients during this same period in emergency (‘unscheduled’) care, which represents a c.6% increase on the full year 2022 and reflects the continuing demands on our hospitals.
However, while we have seen improvements in waiting times, unfortunately higher than anticipated levels of additions to waiting lists has resulted in the volume of patients waiting across lists remaining too high. At the end of July, there were 712,191 people on the total hospital waiting lists. In the last year, although there have been slight decreases in the OPD and GI Scope waiting lists, the total waiting list has increased slightly (<1%).
As at the end of July 2024:
The volume of increased additions was identified as a risk as part of Waiting List Action Plan (WLAP) 2024, and whilst the projections for this year considered the experience in previous years, it was acknowledged that uncertainty remained.
The HSE has attributed the increases in waiting list additions to both demographic (for example: population growth, aging population) and non-demographic challenges (for example: increased awareness of services, new service developments, chronic disease and pent-up demand post COVID-19 pandemic). Increased pressure in Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC), can also impact on the availability of access to scheduled care. Both the HSE and the Department are monitoring these activity metrics and the associated targets from the 2024 WLAP.
Funding of €437 million has been allocated to address waiting lists in 2024. A total of €360 million of this funding has been provided for the 2024 WLAP, which includes €179 million for the NTPF. Funding of €77 million has also been allocated for primary care/community-based initiatives. This includes €3 million specifically to address waiting lists in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), which is a priority for the Minister for Health in 2024.
The 2024 WLAP includes a number of actions and initiatives aimed at reforming scheduled care, including the further rollout of Modernised Care Pathways; continued focus in addressing waiting lists for paediatric orthopaedics (spina bifida/scoliosis) and gynaecology; enhancing theatre optimisation; as well as implementing a number of enhanced productivity and efficiency measures for waiting list management, including the broader rollout of Patient Initiated Reviews (PIR) and Central Referrals. As part of its progress update in July, the HSE has advised that activities (that is, OPD, IPDC) for gynaecology, the overweight and obesity pathway and paediatric orthopaedics (scoliosis and spina bifida) are broadly in line with or ahead of the targets set out in the WLAP.
The 2024 WLAP aims to achieve an almost 6% reduction in the overall number of patients on waiting lists, an increase on the 2.7% reduction achieved last year. With the 2024 WLAP, the Department of Health, the HSE and the NTPF are taking the next steps in the multi-annual approach, including implementing Sláintecare targets through reducing the number of patients breaching the Sláintecare Wait Time Targets as of year-end 2023 by 10% and facilitating timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care, for everyone, where and when they need it.