Patients waiting to be assessed by a hospital consultant face little short of a "postcode lottery" with dramatic variations in outpatient waiting lists across the country, according to the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA).
The IHCA has found wide disparities between outpatient waiting lists at different hospitals, when examined on a population basis, with some hospitals in the South and West having waiting lists 20 times greater than others.
Nationally, around one in eight people are currently on a hospital outpatient waiting list. However, new analysis by the IHCA suggests this can be a much higher rate in some areas, as consultants warn that timely access to healthcare should not be determined by a person’s address.
The warning comes as the latest National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) figures released today confirm there are 893,043 people on some form of hospital waiting list, including 97,954 children.
This is an increase of 30,323 in the past year, or around 83 people added to public hospital waiting lists every single day since January 2021.
Outpatient waiting lists
An analysis of outpatient waiting lists per hospital, reveals some stark geographical disparities. The six constituencies with the largest waiting lists are: Cork South Central (70,862), Limerick City (47,555), Dublin Central (44,956), Galway West (56,916), Waterford (43,002) and Dublin Bay South (41,655).
However, the IHCA said that this analysis does not take into account the fact that many of the larger hospitals provide specialty services to an even wider population than those directly in the area: for example in such treatment areas as cancer, cardiology, gynaecology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, neurology or surgery.
Consultants say that the limitations of the NTPF data means a clear and accurate picture of patients waiting for appointments and treatment at each of Ireland’s hospitals is "almost impossible to derive".
While outpatient waiting lists at 625,513 have increased by 2,500 compared to this time last year, the increases are far greater in other lists for planned procedures, pre-admissions and inpatient and outpatient suspensions maintained by the NTPF but not widely publicised. These lists increased by more than 32,000 (25 per cent) since January 2021 and now total 161,246.
Consultants have renewed their call on Government to effectively address the record hospital waiting lists by ending the "discrimination introduced in 2012 against consultants appointed after that date, thereby increasing staffing levels and providing the health service with the ability to deliver timely access to essential care for Ireland’s patients".
IHCA President Prof Alan Irvine: “These shocking figures should be a wake-up call to Government to urgently address the twin deficits of a shortage of Consultants and a lack of sufficient public hospital capacity to resolve the record waiting lists we continue to experience. A patient’s access to care should not depend on where they live. The Government needs to address this ‘postcode lottery’ and realise that any waiting list plan which does not simultaneously address the Consultant recruitment and retention crisis is destined to fail. Our patients deserve better.”
