Irish Examiner view: HSE cannot fix what it doesn’t understand

Cancelled and missed appointments waste resources, prolong waiting lists, and delay treatment

Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane, who tried to get the information through a parliamentary question, was right to question the HSE’s inability to say how many cancellations resulted from staff shortages, bed capacity, or other resource pressures. As he noted, without this information it is difficult to put solutions in place. File picture

The revelation that the HSE cancelled close to 220,000 medical appointments in the first nine months of this year is concerning. It is equally alarming that reasons for the cancellations are not available centrally to the people managing the health service. If the HSE cannot say why 24,000 appointments a month are being cancelled, it will struggle to fix the problem.

The consequences for patients are considerable. Most cancellations related to return outpatient appointments, disrupting treatment or monitoring. Many thousands related to first appointments for which people may have been waiting months. Others had prepared for admission to hospital for procedures or tests, only to have their appointments cancelled. For many, the cancellation meant re-arranging time off work, child minding, and transport.