THE NUMBER of patients waiting more than 12 months for surgery has fallen by 60 per cent, but many patients are still waiting months for critical tests for cancer, general surgery and other procedures.
Some 1,846 patients have now been on waiting lists for more than 12 months, down from 4,594 in October 2007.
About 48 per cent of those 1,846 patients are on lists in the northwest, west and midwest areas, the latest report from the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) said.
More than four out of 10 of that 48 per cent are waiting in three hospitals - Letterkenny General, Sligo General and the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick.
Six out of 10 of those waiting longer than 12 months for a surgical procedure are on waiting lists at Letterkenny General Hospital, Sligo General Hospital, Temple Street hospital, Limerick Regional Hospital and Cork University Hospital.
Overall, 15,086 patients have been waiting longer than three months for surgery nationwide across 44 public hospitals, a decrease of 15 per cent compared to this time last year.
In total, there are 19,650 patients who have been waiting three months or more for either medical or surgical treatment.
On average, public patients have been waiting 2.9 months for operations.
Nineteen of the top 20 adult surgical procedures and all of the top 10 child procedures have an average waiting time of two to five months.
A total of 3,620 patients are currently waiting more than three months for diagnostic scopes, including, in more than half of these cases, a colonoscopy.
NTPF chief executive Pat O'Byrne said many people were still waiting "needlessly".
He said if a hospital could treat people who are only three months or six months on a waiting list, questions had to be asked about why they are not first treating people who are 12 months or longer on the list.
Mr O'Byrne said progress had been made in cutting lists at some hospitals, including in Letterkenny, Tallaght and Tullamore.
Since 2002, the fund has arranged treatment for more than 130,000 public patients and expects to arrange treatment for a total of 37,000 in 2008.
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said patient waiting lists continued to be a "scandal" and that they did not take account of thousands of people waiting for outpatient appointments.
Labour Party health spokeswoman Jan O'Sullivan said more than 3,600 patients had been waiting in excess of three months for diagnostic tests and that more than half of these were waiting for a colonoscopy.
The Irish Patients' Association welcomed the drop in 12-month waiting times and the reduction in the number of patients on hospital surgery lists but noted 531 public patients had waited an average of three months for a coronary angiogram.
The Irish Cancer Society said more clinics in hospitals could reduce waiting times for colonoscopies, which were vital for the detection of bowel cancer.
The NTPF recently said it had the budget, scope and capacity to provide these tests within a matter of weeks once a patient was referred to it.
Health Service Executive chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm said hospitals had been instructed to refer patients immediately to the NTPF once they had been waiting more than three months for a colonoscopy.
He said "major initiatives" were under way to reduce waiting times further in the next 12 months.