The latest data from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) reveals over 699,000 patients were on a hospital waiting list of some description at the end of the previous month. Of this total, 467,593 individuals had been waiting beyond the slated 10- or 12-week target as part of the Sláintecare reform project for health services.
Specifically, 86,827 individuals were queued for their inpatient or day case treatment appointment, 23,620 were awaiting a gastrointestinal scope appointment, and 589,225 were in line for their initial outpatient hospital consultation. The NTPF further added that pre-admit figures demonstrated 33,684 patients had secured a date for their inpatient/day case or endoscopy process.
An additional 100,676 patients were logged under the planned procedure category. Meanwhile, 67,883 were indexed as “suspended” due to either health-related incapabilities or impediments of personal or social nature.
On this note, the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has beckoned the Government to use the seventh anniversary of the Sláintecare plan as a time to enact the long-overdue expansion of acute hospital capacity to decrease these waiting lists. A lack of significant improvement over the past seven years – over two-thirds of the way into the ten-year plan – has been recognised by IHCA vice president Prof Gabrielle Colleran. At this point, rather than seeing the improved health service that Sláintecare promised, a 55% increase in hospital waiting lists has been observed since the plan’s initiation in May 2017.
Moreover, Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson David Cullinane has critiqued that the Health Minister’s strategies aimed at reducing these lists have fallen short, with no notable impact observed.
“Truthfully, regardless of how many proposals the Minister brings forth, without sufficient funding to bolster capacity, these plans are merely inconsequential text,” he declared. “The harmful employment freeze is continually upheld, and the needed funding for an additional 3,000 hospital and community beds is still not granted by the Government. They’ve even failed to set aside funding for the Minister’s pledged 1,500 hospital beds.”
The Health Department claimed that it was “routine” for the queue for care to lengthen in the first few months of the year as planned care is limited due to the rise in urgent health care demand.
“In spite of notable difficulties resulting from the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, pressures on emergency departments, and other management issues such as staffing, our health facilities have made advancements that are genuinely impacting patients,” they stated.
“A number of individual hospitals have seen considerable reductions in both their waiting lists and waiting times. The Health Service Executive is actively endeavouring to mirror this positive outcome across all hospital systems.”
The Department further stated that subsequent to the “peaks” of the Covid-19 ordeal, there’s been a 25% reduction in individuals waiting in line longer than the established Sláintecare goals. To manage the lengthy waiting lists in 2024, they declared that a funding sum of €437 million has been reserved.