Nearly 15,000 hospital appointments were cancelled in April, new figures released by the Health Service Executive to Sinn Féin show.
In a letter to the party’s health spokesman David Cullinane, the HSE said the scheduled care and non-urgent appointments could have been cancelled for a number of reasons, including increased emergency department attendances which could result in a requirement for surge inpatient bed capacity.
The HSE also said appointments may have been cancelled for unforeseen weather circumstances, infection outbreaks or because of industrial action.
Commenting on Tuesday morning, Mr Cullinane said that such cancellations are a product of emergency department overcrowding and a lack of capacity.
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“This is true of in-patient beds, surgical theatre capacity and a lack of specialists in our acute hospitals. However, it is also down to deficiencies in community care. The HSE are struggling to hire home help which prevents many being cared for in the home. GP capacity is growing as a problem with a lack of out-of-hours GP care adding pressures on acute hospitals.
“We need a joined up plan that tackles waiting lists and hospital overcrowding. We need more in-patient beds in some hospitals [which] cannot admit patients quick enough. We need a renewed focus on enhanced community care including home care supports and recovery beds in the community. A lack of capacity in these areas leads to unnecessary longer patient discharge times.”
He said there is also a need for more GP capacity.
“Patients are waiting longer for GP access in some areas particularly out-of-hours GP care. This in turn leaves patients with no choice but to attend A&E.”
Sinn Féin has also called for a new workforce planning strategy “that once and for all puts in place a realistic and deliverable plan on increasing medical training places over the next five years, a job guarantee for all graduates and addresses retention issues.”
The new figures show that 908 elective inpatient admissions were cancelled in April as well as 56 chemotherapy day cases. In the same month, eight dialysis day cases were cancelled as were 588 GI scope day cases. Some 1,391 “other day cases” were cancelled in April on top of 2,887 new outpatient appointments and 8,963 return outpatient appointments.
The highest levels of cancellations were in the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group.
The HSE said that hospitals will try to give the patient as much notice as possible about the cancellation of elective appointments. They said a waiting list management protocol issued by the National Treatment Purchase Fund requires hospitals to “reschedule elective care appointments within six weeks of cancellation, subject to patient confirmation regarding their availability to attend”.
“Clinical guidance must be sought when managing and rescheduling patients cancelled by the hospital. This is necessary to ensure that urgent and vulnerable patients are rescheduled appropriately. Patients cancelled by the hospital will not have their waiting list date reset.”
