Press release
Monthly waiting list figures - October 2024
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
From Department of Health
Published on
Last updated on
The latest hospital waiting list figures published today by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) for October demonstrate the progress achieved through the multi-annual action plan approach to address long wait times for care. The latest hospital activity report, published by the Health Service Executive (HSE), shows increased levels of activity in the delivery of scheduled and unscheduled care.
The figures show positive progress achieved in terms of those patients waiting longest. There has been a c. 16% reduction in the total number of patients waiting over 12 months since this time last year, and a corresponding reduction of c. 24% in the number waiting over 18 months.
Improvements in terms of the length of time patients are waiting can also be seen in the progress achieved towards the Sláintecare targets. Since the pandemic peaks, there has been a c. 26% reduction in the number of people waiting longer than the Sláintecare targets, equating to over 161,000 people.
Continuing improvements in the Outpatient Department (OPD) waiting list have contributed to an overall reduction in the total waiting list for the second month in a row.
Our acute hospitals are also delivering higher levels of activity and treating many more patients. The latest hospital rolling 12-month activity report published by the HSE gives insight into acute activity levels, with millions of patients being seen and treated annually within our hospital service. The report outlines that there was c. 3.8 million OPD, and c. 1.9 million IPDC attendances during the period covered by the report. In comparison with the levels of activity delivered in the full year 2022, these figures represent increases of c. 10% for outpatient activity and c. 11% for inpatient and day case activity.
In addition to this planned care, our hospital system also treated c. 1.8 million patients during this same period in emergency care, which represents a c. 8% increase on the full year 2022 and reflects the continuing demands on our hospitals. Despite the many challenges, our hospitals have delivered improvements which are making a real difference to patients.
Many individual hospitals have implemented measures to deliver impressive reductions in both their waiting lists and waiting times in the year to date to the end of September.
For example, in Cork University Hospital, the OPD rheumatology waiting list has been reduced by 45.6% since the beginning of the year with an additional 708 patients being seen. This was achieved by increasing capacity through additional WTEs and delivery of full packages of care, including initial and follow up consultations, required diagnostics and clinical/nursing support.
In St. James’s Hospital, the IPDC plastic surgery waiting list has been reduced by 38.7%, and the average wait time has improved by 0.8 months. This was achieved by supporting extended days in surgery and additional Saturday day surgery sessions carried out by multi-disciplinary teams, with a focus on longest waiting patients.
In Tallaght University Hospital, through the use of clinical insourcing solutions, the GI Scope gastro-enterology waiting list has been reduced by 42.6%, and an additional 764 patients have been seen this year.
While we have seen improvements in waiting times and in the level of activity being delivered, increased demand and higher than anticipated levels of additions to waiting lists have resulted in the volume of patients waiting across lists remaining too high. At the end of October, there were 700,739 people on the total acute hospital waiting lists, which represents an increase of less than 1% in the last year.
There have been c.181k additions to the Waiting List in October. There have been c.187k removals from the Waiting list in October. Whilst having an impact on the volume of people on our waiting lists, growth in the number of referrals to our hospital system has a positive aspect as it is indicative of people accessing the services that they need, an increased awareness of services as well as expansion of services.
Total funding of €360 million was provided for the WLAP this year and the WLAP sets out 19 actions across three themes, namely Delivering Capacity, Reforming Scheduled Care, and Enabling Scheduled Care Reform. The 2024 Plan builds on progress achieved in 2021, 2022 and 2023 as part of the multi-annual WLAP approach.
The level of funding allocated to waiting lists for 2025 will ensure that this progress can continue to be built upon next year. Funding of €420 million is being allocated to the WLAP for 2025, encompassing €190 million for the HSE and €230 million for the NTPF. This represents an almost 17% increase (€60 million) above the significant funding of €360 million allocated for the Action Plan this year. With this significant funding for 2025, we will continue to progress towards having a public healthcare service in which everyone has timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care, where and when they need it.