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.

This figure — which accounts for just short of one in every 12 people in Ireland — includes 110,000 waiting more than a year and almost 10,000 waiting more than four years.

The situation has been described by Irish Patients’ Association’s chairman Step-hen McMahon as adding “even further strain” to the system.

“There’s still too many people waiting,” he said.

Outpatient surgeries, consultant appointments, and other procedures are not among the life-threatening conditions.

However, they are deemed serious enough to warrant medical intervention and as such must be addressed in order to prevent more dangerous situations occurring in future years.

Last autumn, irishhealth.com reported that upwards of 2,000 people at risk of serious heart problems were being forced to wait more than a year for initial consultant checks — including 74 people unable to access care for more than four years.

The figures confirmed that 14,743 patients with heart problems were told they had to wait to access the first medical assessment stage.

Nearly 12,800 of these were waiting less than a year, including 5,789 who were seen at an outpatient consultant appointment within a month; 3,489 within three to six months; and 3,465 within six to 12 months.

However, at the start of September 1,605 people were waiting between one and two years; 380 waiting two to three years; 30 waiting three to four years; and 74 waiting four years or more.

The Department of Health’s special delivery unit (SDU) — set up by Health Minister James Reilly to cut outpatient, inpatient, and trolley count lists — said its first full account of outpatient numbers in October found that more than 365,000 people were waiting for help.

The majority of waits account for a matter of months. However, the SDU and Mr Reilly have committed to cutting back on the longest waiting times.

As part of this, the SDU is in the process of setting up an electronic booking and referrals system to track where patient cases are in terms of access to care.

The outpatient situation contrasts with a massive improvement in inpatient waits last year.

The HSE performance monitoring report shows that at the end of 2012, 186 adults were waiting nine months or more and 89 children 20 weeks or more across a range of specialities.

In Jan 2012, the same rates stood at 4,678 and 1,712 — changes equivalent to 98% and 95% cuts in a single 12-month period.