Number of patients seeking outpatient appointments down slightly this month

The number of people awaiting outpatient appointments in public hospitals has decreased by just under 1,000 since last month, according to new data.

The organisation responsible for monitoring trends and patient flows, the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), published data on Friday showing that for the month of June, 623,903 patients were on a waiting list for an appointment.

This is down slightly from 624,444 for the month of May.

In June, 536,694 adult patients were waiting for an outpatient appointment, with the majority of patients (256,531) waiting between 0-6 months and 112,460 waiting as many as 18 months.

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87,209 children were waiting outpatient appointments, 41,322 of whom were on the waiting list for between 0-6 months.

Galway University Hospital had the highest number of adult patients waiting for an outpatient appointment at 50,784, followed by 40,776 at the Mater University Hospital in Dublin.