Record number of patients on NI hospital waiting lists

A record number of patients in Northern Ireland are now waiting to see a hospital consultant for the first time with some now forced to wait almost six years.

Figures just released show that outpatient waiting list numbers remain at more than half a million despite efforts by the Department of Health to tackle the problem.

Latest statistics show that at the end of September there were 542,451 patients waiting to see a consultant at NI hospitals. It means no NI health trust met its target for patients to be seen.

The average time for a patient to be seen by a consultant is more than a year, with the longest being 305 weeks - the equivalent of five years and 10 months.

Target waiting times are that 50% of patients should be seen within nine weeks, with no one waiting longer than 52 weeks.

However, more than 85% of patients have waited longer than nine weeks, and 55% longer than 52 weeks.

The figures for the three months between June and September this year are the first full picture of waiting list lengths since all health trusts collectively began using the electronic patient record system, Encompass.

The Department of Health said while the figures were "statistics in development", they were a "meaningful representation" of the current length of waiting lists.

The longest waiting list was for ears, nose and throat (ENT) consultations, followed by gynaecology, ophthalmology and then general surgery.

The figures also show that more than 225,000 people here are waiting on a diagnostic test.

In July this year, the Department of Health appointed the surgeon Professor Mark Taylor to head a team charged with addressing the waiting list problem.

Last month, he said there "had been a collective effort to reduce waiting times for those anxiously waiting" and welcomed a "significant reduction" in endoscopy waiting lists.

Waits for the investigatory procedure fell by 62% in October this year, according to the Department of Health.

Professor Taylor said that "real progress" was being made in reducing some of the longest waits for assessments, tests and treatment.

The number of people waiting more than four years for key procedures had halved since March, he said.

The NI Executive's latest Programme for Government had set out tackling waiting lists as a top priority, with up to £215M earmarked to reduce them.

However, last month it was revealed that a third of this money - more than £73M - had been diverted to alleviate the Department of Health's massive deficit.