The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has questioned claims by the Department of Health that the Government’s plans for reducing hospital waiting lists is running ahead of target.
The IHCA released a statement following the publication of the latest National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) figures which confirmed that 896,700 people were on some form of hospital waiting list at the end of August.
The €443 million Action Plan set a target to reduce waiting lists for outpatient appointments and inpatient and day case treatment by 10 per cent – or 69,000 – by the end of the year.
However, the IHCA said that “eight months into 2023 and instead of an expected reduction of around 45,500 people, the latest NTPF figures confirm that almost 18,200 additional people have in fact been added to these three main waiting lists – a 63,700 shortfall.”
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In a statement the umbrella group said that while the number of patients treated or removed from the waiting lists may be above target, “additions to waiting lists in the same period have been much higher than projected. This means there has been no net reduction so far this year” with waiting lists increasing by around 3 per cent since January.
“The stark reality is that there are over 896,000 people on some form of NTPF waiting list, which is up more than 26,600 this year alone,” said IHCA President Prof Robert Landers. “When the additional 250,000 waiting for essential hospital diagnostic scans are included, the number of people awaiting hospital care is over 1.1 million – or one-fifth of the population.”
He called on the Government to commit the estimated €4 billion in capital funding in October’s Budget to build and open essential additional hospital beds, theatres, diagnostics and other facilities already announced by the Minister for Health in order to cut waiting lists.
“The Government also needs to address the very obvious shortages of consultants in our public hospitals, given that a record 933 permanent Consultant posts are vacant or filled on a temporary basis, and the fact that Ireland continues to have the lowest number of medical specialists on a population basis in Europe,” he said.
