LISTEN: Rising hospital waiting lists must be a major Executive priority in 2021 - Swann

by Q Radio News

Hospital waiting lists must be a major Executive priority in 2021, Health Minister Robin Swann has stressed.

Commenting on the latest waiting time statistics, the Minister said: “I very much regret that the number of people enduring excessive waits for assessment or treatment has increased again. Unfortunately this position can be expected to worsen further.”

There's been another increase in the number of people waiting for a consultant led appointment at our hospitals.

327,189 patients were waiting up until the end of September, over 17,000 more than at the end of June.

It's also an increase on the same time last year, with 21,014 people waiting for an appointment.

Meanwhile, just under 100,000 people were waiting to be admitted to hospital in Northern Ireland, as increase of around 2,500 compared to the beginning of the summer.

Other key statistics released by the Department of Health:

• An additional 2,049 patients were waiting for their first consultant-led outpatient appointment at a Day Case Procedure Centre (DPC) for cataract treatment.
• Over four fifths (84.9%, 277,776) of patients were waiting more than nine weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment, compared with 89.3% (276,753) at 30 June 2020 and 75.9% (232,239) at 30 September 2019.
• Almost half (47.5%; 155,497) of patients were waiting more than 52 weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment, compared with 44.1% (136,633) at 30 June 2020, and 35.5% (108,582) at 30 September 2019.
• During the quarter ending September 2020, there were 59,208 attendances for a first outpatient appointment, an increase of 50.4% (19,841) on the number seen during the quarter ending June 2020 (39,367), and 48.8% (56,485) less than during the quarter ending September 2019 (115,693).

Meanwhile, a total of 160,663 patients were waiting for a diagnostic service, 7.5% (11,260) more than at 30 June 2020 (149,403) and 14.6% (20,426) more than at 30 September 2019 (140,237).

The Minister said that, given the surge in Covid-19 cases, it was unavoidable that elective care activity would reduce due to the need to redeploy staff to Covid related activity.

The Health Minister also paid tribute to the ongoing efforts of staff.

Health Minister Robin Swann

“Battling the pandemic as well as maintaining non-Covid services as much as possible has been a balancing act and I am grateful to HSC staff for their resilience and efforts. In any other walk of life, it would have been natural to wind things down after the first surge as we moved into summer. Health service staff did not do that, but instead redoubled their efforts.

“During the first wave, our HSC system delivered 12,150 new outpatient consultations in April. There were 29,163 in October. In terms of inpatient or day-case procedures, 4,859 were delivered in April, compared with 13,301 in October. Similarly, there were 39,907 outpatient reviews in April compared with 56,071 in October. Overall, there was over 73% more activity in October than April. Our surge and rebuild plans were effective in keeping services going. Each Trust surpassed its target for the period July to September 2020 but the pandemic has undoubtedly exacerbated what was already a crisis with waiting times.”

In addition to in-house activity, Trusts have been utilising local independent sector capacity. During the period 29 June to 18 October 2020, approximately 320 independent sector theatre sessions have been utilised by Trusts, meaning that 1,010 patients have had their procedure undertaken in the independent sector – paid for by the health service.

The Minister emphasised that tackling waiting lists must be a major priority for the entire Executive in 2021.

“Waiting list were a clear priority in New Decade New Approach but plans were blown off course by the pandemic.

“I am very conscious that public spending is likely to be very constrained next year and that all Departments will be facing serious funding pressures.

“The reality is that tackling waiting lists will not be possible without sustained and substantial investment and additional staffing.”

Responding to the latest waiting list data, Alliance Health spokesperson Paula Bradshaw MLA has again warned the scale of waiting lists and growing waiting times re-emphasise the need to move swiftly with the transformation process and to re-build reformed services.

Waiting lists demonstrate need to move swiftly with transformation process, says @PaulaJaneB

See more here -https://t.co/I1aGhtTqEz pic.twitter.com/lElsy9Hh0y

— Alliance Party (@allianceparty) November 26, 2020

“The rising waiting lists and, perhaps even more worryingly, the times people are waiting, show the shameful failure of past Health and Finance Ministers to grasp the need for urgent reform,” said Ms Bradshaw.

“There can be no excuse now for any holding up of the transformation process. Anything else is just putting a temporary sticking plaster on a serious systemic failure.

“The Health Minister can rely on our full support for moving on swiftly with transformation to deliver a better, efficient service in which people move through to receive the care they need faster.”