95,000 patients waiting more than a year to see consultant in NI

Nearly 95,000 patients across Northern Ireland are waiting more than a year – just to see a consultant for the first time, it emerged today (Thursday).

The shock new figures are falling way short of Department of Health targets which say that by next month, not one patient should wait longer than 52 weeks.

Overall, nearly 300,000 patients were waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment at the end of 2018.

In addition, more than three quarters – 213,752 – were waiting more than nine weeks for an appointment.

Again, this falls way short of the Department of Health guideline which says at least 50% of patients should wait no longer than nine weeks by March.

Statistics for inpatient and day case admission fare no better.

At December 31, 2018, no fewer than 21,477 patients were waiting more than 52 weeks for either an inpatient or day-case admission, compared with 19,715 three months previously.

New targets state no patient should wait longer than a year.

Patients include those waiting for elective – non-urgent hospital treatment – and emergency admissions.

In a statement, the Department of Health said the service was “simply unable to keep pace with growing demands for treatment – despite the best efforts of staff.”

“Funding of £30 million has been provided this year which by the end of December had resulted in an additional 79,000 assessments or treatments,” it said.

“However, this investment has only managed to slow the overall growth in waiting times - a fact which underlines the scale of the challenge facing the system.

“Fundamental transformation remains the only long-term answer to this problem.

“While transformation is underway, sustained investment is also required to clear the backlog of patients waiting for treatment.”

Dr Anne Carson, chair of BMA Northern Ireland’s consultant’s committee said: “Every time the waiting list figures come out it is the same story – the number of patients waiting for first appointments and for treatment or further diagnostics increases. This is a totally unacceptable service for our patients.

“We cannot continue like this; if we don’t move swiftly it is hard to see how this situation will be improved. We have had extensive reviews, reports and recommendations made on what we need to do to have the world class health and care system people here want and deserve. We need to be able to implement those and our current political situation is a barrier to that progress.

“We need to recruit more doctors and retain them; we need to have a health service people want to work in. The medical job market is increasingly international and there are better opportunities to work elsewhere in the UK or abroad. We need to have more flexible working opportunities for doctors, better training and career development opportunities and pay parity with our colleagues in the rest of the UK."

UUP Health spokesman Roy Beggs said figures were as "staggering" as they were "terrifying."

“The £30m funding package - an attempted short term fix made available through the DUP/Conservative confidence and supply arrangement - has simply not worked.

“If these equivalent hospital waiting times were occurring anywhere else in the UK it would rightly cause outrage and be a national scandal, and yet in Northern Ireland it is now simply taken for granted that every publication of figures will be worse than the one that came before.

“Health waiting times are reported as a trigger for actions as it is medically accepted that the longer patients are forced to wait for treatment, the greater the harm they may ultimately come to. There is no doubt whatsoever that the health of local patients is being adversely affected by the delays."

• Department of Health