In the three years since the launch of the Waiting List Action Plan in September 2021, there has been a 58.5% reduction in the number of patients waiting over 12 months, equating to over 169,000 people, according to Health Minister, Mr. Stephen Donnelly.
He said there had been:
- A 17% reduction in the total number of patients waiting over 12 months since September 2023, and a corresponding reduction of c. 27% in the number waiting over 18 months.
- A reduction of approximately 45% in the average waiting time for Outpatient Department (OPD) appointments, down from 13.2 months in July 2021 to 7.2 months at the end of September 2024.
- In the same period, there was a 30% reduction in the average waiting time for InPatient & Day Cases (IPDC), down from 8.4 to 5.9 months, while the waiting time for GI Scopes fell from 5.8 months to 2.9 months.
The improvements had been achieved despite significantly increased demands for scheduled care services, demonstrating sustained progress towards the ultimate goal of reducing waiting times to 10 weeks for Outpatients and 12 weeks for Inpatients and Day Cases.
Speaking in November, Minister Donnelly said, “I am delighted to share details of the significant progress made in reducing Acute Hospital Scheduled Care waiting times. The decrease across the health service is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our healthcare professionals. With the continued funding and support, we are confident that we will achieve our goal of providing timely and high-quality scheduled care for everyone.
“This is a great achievement, and a big step towards our goal of hitting the waiting times outlined in the 2017 Sláintecare report. While we’re not there yet, we’ve seen about a 23% drop in the number of people waiting longer than the targets since the peak of the pandemic, which means over 147,000 fewer people waiting longer than they should for care.”
International bodies including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have emphasised that waiting time is a more important metric than total waiting list numbers in assessing the performance of a health service. Reducing waiting times brings a number of benefits from a patient perspective, including mitigating the risk of conditions worsening and leading to poorer health outcomes, and improving patient satisfaction in care provision.
Funding of €420 million is being allocated to the Waiting List Action Plan (WLAP) for 2025, including €190 million for the Health Service Executive (HSE) and €230 million for the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF). This represents an almost 17% increase (€60 million) above the significant funding of €360 million allocated for the Action Plan this year. With this significant funding for 2025, work will continue on the transformation of the public healthcare service to ensure equity of access to timely, quality care.
