Hospital waiting list target breached by 50,000

There are 50,000 people now waiting longer for hospital appointments, procedures and tests than official targets set out by the HSE.

The figure was revealed in a confidential letter from Minister for Health Leo Varadkar to Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin.

Mr Varadkar, in the letter, signalled that additional money – over and above the €74 million in supplementary funding allocated several weeks ago by the Government to tackle emergency department overcrowding and other related issues – may be needed to deal with growing waiting lists.

In the letter, dated March 31st last, Mr Varadkar said at the end of 2013 there were few breaches of the official maximum waiting times set by the HSE for adults and children requiring hospital appointments, procedures and tests.

Targets

The official maximum waiting times or targets range from 20 weeks to one year.

“Now there are over 50,000 patients for whom these waiting times have been breached.” Mr Varadkar said one of the consequences of difficulties faced by hospitals in the early part of the year – when they faced large numbers of delayed discharges and patients on trolleys in emergency departments – was that “ a significant number of elective operations had to be postponed”. As a result waiting lists had grown.

“This will remain a problem over the course of the year and can only be resolved by opening closed operating theatres, paying overtime to extend operating hours of radiology departments, funding Saturday clinics and using the private hospitals,” his letter said.

He also said "there are particular local problems in seven or eight hospitals. In these hospitals there is a capacity issue linked to the 'reconfiguring' of other hospitals in their region.These include Drogheda, Limerick, Galway and St Vincent's".

He added: “Reform of practices and processes needs to and is being driven forward. However, in the case of some of the most challenged hospitals, it is clear that reform without some additional funding for the hospitals themselves will not deliver the required level of improvement.”