One in 12 forced to wait for appointments

The equivalent of one-in-12 people in Ireland are forced to wait for outpatient hospital appointments — including almost 10,000 people unable to access care for more than four years.

The HSE’s performance monitoring report shows that, despite significant improvements in inpatient waiting list levels, the outpatient situation continues to cause havoc.

At the end of last year a total of 384,446 people were waiting on outpatient treatment lists.