Former HSE boss criticises its waiting list plan as 'nowhere near sufficient'

Former HSE director general Tony O'Brien. Picture: Niall Carson/PA
The former director general of the HSE has said the agency’s winter action plan to reduce waiting lists is “nowhere near sufficient.”
In a tweet, Tony O’Brien said “multi-year budgets and reversing the self-inflicted consultant recruitment crisis are absolute must do’s” if the HSE want to see hospital waiting lists reduced.
It comes as the health service’s current plan will see Ireland's 761,000-strong waiting lists reduced by only 36,000 by the end of this year.
The HSE has confirmed it is to offer "150,000 additional appointments, procedures, and/or removals [from waiting lists]" by December.
However, this will barely cancel out the expected rise in waiting lists if it does not implement the plan.
As of the end of August, there were almost 761,000 patients awaiting in-patient, day-case or out-patient, and GI endoscopy treatment.
The HSE says without action that figure will rise to 875,000.
However, it believes it can get the total down to 724,000 by the end of December by offering an additional 105,000 new outpatient appointments/waiting list removals, an additional 31,000 inpatient or day case procedures/waiting list removals and an additional 13,600 GI scopes/waiting-list removals.
Meanwhile, hospital consultants say that the goal of fixing the health system appears to be “further away than ever”, with the current available bed capacity in hospitals is at “dangerous” levels.
According to Professor Alan Irvine, president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, and the Health Minister are “losing the dressing room” when it comes to trust between consultants and health service management.
Addressing the IHCA 2021 annual conference, Prof Irvine said the last 12 months have been among the “most turbulent” in the careers of consultants.
“One year ago, I spoke about how the collision of Covid-19 and an under-resourced health system had backed us as a country into a corner,” he said.
“Then, with a cruelty that tested even the most resilient of us, the cyber-attack ruthlessly exposed our archaic IT infrastructure.”
The “Acute Waiting List Action Plan September – December 2021” published this week is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. Multi-year budgets and reversing the self inflicted consultant recruitment crisis are absolute must do’s. https://t.co/T40dykEb9N
— Tony O’Brien🇺🇦 (@tweetsnolimits) October 9, 2021
He said that one year on, consultants still have their “backs against the wall”.
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has told hospital consultants that the waiting list for a hospital appointment was “completely unacceptable”.
He dismissed suggestions that people are going to have to wait five years for the waiting list crisis to be addressed.
“We are going to address the waiting lists. Anyone who suggests we can wait five years to deal with the backlog is underestimating my determination and the determination of the Government to sort this out,” the minister said.
Speaking at the 2021 annual conference of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA), he said: “Girls and boys, women and men, are sometimes waiting years to see a consultant, they are waiting again to get a scan and waiting again to get back to their consultant and waiting again to have a procedure. In one of the wealthiest countries on Earth, this is completely unacceptable.”
He said a waiting list taskforce, chaired by the department of health’s secretary general, would operate along similar lines as the successful vaccine taskforce.