Waiting list for outpatient appointments hits record high

The number of patients waiting for an outpatient appointment has risen to a new record of more than 412,000.

The backlog of patients waiting for day-case procedures continues to rise, but there has been a slight improvement in the number of patients waiting for inpatient treatment, according to the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF).

Some 412,422 patients were waiting for an outpatient appointment at the end of April, of whom 83,347 were waiting for longer than 12 months, according to the NTPF.

Galway University Hospital has the longest list, with more than 36,000 people waiting for outpatient appointments.

Some 67,166 patients were waiting for inpatient or day-case treatment, of whom 9,433 were waiting more than a year.

Elderly patients

The HSE says the age profile of patients attending hospitals and being admitted in February changed considerably from the previous month, with a significantly higher number of frail, elderly patients with complex medical needs.

Despite the injection of extra funds to alleviate the trolley crisis in hospitals, the number of delayed discharges dropped only slightly, from 850 to 705.

More than 100 patients were waiting longer than the target time of four weeks for an urgent colonoscopy, the HSE performance report for February shows.

Three hospitals breached the target: St Vincent’s in Dublin, which had 10 people waiting over four weeks; Tallaght Hospital, with 101 waiting past the target, and Letterkenny General Hospital, with three.

The HSE was more than €58 million in deficit by the end of February, the report shows.

It says it has not been able to deliver promised cost reductions since the start of the year because of a focus on opening additional beds.

“The sustained exceptional level of delayed discharges, the cost pressures these are causing and the level of management time and capacity taken up with dealing with this issue within our acute and social care services is beyond the level anticipated in the service plan.”

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said the figures showed hospitals were starting to catch up on surgery and procedures delayed due to overcrowding in hospitals in January.