The number of patients waiting for a hospital appointment has surpassed the million mark for the first time. <\/p>\n
Figures from the National Treatment Purchase Fund<\/a> (NTPF) show 1,080,600 patients were on the public hospital waiting list at the end of May, a rise of 10,000 on the previous month. <\/p>\n The Irish Health Consultants Association (IHCA) warned that the decision to prioritise emergency admissions at the expense of those waiting for elective procedures would have \u201csevere knock-on consequences for patient health outcomes\u201d. <\/p>\n The NTPF figures show 669,506 patients are waiting for a first hospital outpatient consultation, 115,450 patients are waiting for an appointment for their inpatient or day-case treatment and 40,986 are waiting for an endoscopy. <\/p>\n There are 111,643 patients waiting for a planned procedure, 78,333 of whom have already been seen but are waiting further procedures and 34,049 whose procedures have been suspended for clinical, personal or social reasons. <\/p>\n A further 36,978 parents are waiting for their inpatient\/day-case or endoscopy procedure<\/p>\n The IHCA said more than 286,500 elective surgeries, endoscopies, day-case treatments and outpatient appointments were cancelled last year \u2013 an increase of more than 19,000 on the 267,400 reported in 2024.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Waiting lists: Patients waiting 18 months or more increased in the majority of Irish hospitals in 2025Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n This has had a knock-on effect on waiting lists for outpatients, inpatients and day cases which has reached 72,180 so far this year, the ICHA stated. <\/p>\n The IHCA said the cancellation of elective, essential hospital appointments and operations \u201ccannot be the go-to solution to our trolley crisis\u201d as it would lead to \u201csevere adverse consequences\u201d for patient health outcomes. <\/p>\n It added that since the Sl\u00e1inteacre<\/a> report was published in May 2017, hospital waiting lists have grown by 425,000 \u2013 a 73 per cent increase.<\/p>\n IHCA president Prof Gabrielle Colleran said the current waiting lists were hampering \u201cdiagnosis, treatment and delivery of care\u201d. <\/p>\n She said the Government was treating scheduled care as an \u201coptional extra\u201d in the delivery of healthcare. <\/p>\n \u201cThe persistent trolley crisis in our hospitals is a direct result of chronic bed shortages and limited step-down capacity, and responding to these deficits by simply cancelling life-enhancing surgery is completely unacceptable and poorly thought out,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n \u201cWe urge the Department of Health<\/a> and HSE<\/a> to reverse this negative policy and come to the table with long-term and sustainable solutions that our patients deserve. <\/p>\n \u201cThat includes ensuring that the productivity of our limited consultant capacity is maximised by having them working alongside their multidisciplinary teams.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of patients waiting for a hospital appointment has surpassed the million mark for the first time.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3414,42,1418,84301,45130,43,1422,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-496888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-department-of-health","tag-headlines","tag-health-service-executive-hse","tag-healthcare-investment","tag-national-treatment-purchase-fund-board","tag-news","tag-slaintecare","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}