Monthly waiting list figures – February 2025
The latest hospital waiting list figures for February published today by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) underline the progress achieved through the multi-annual action plan approach to addressing long wait times for care. The latest hospital activity report published by the Health Service Executive (HSE), demonstrates increased levels of hospital activity in the delivery of scheduled and unscheduled care services.
Today’s figures follow publication last month of the Waiting List Action Plan (WLAP) 2025, by the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD. The WLAP 2025 embodies the Government’s commitment to reducing waiting times for patients, thereby, improving access to hospital care.
Notwithstanding the time of the year, we still see progress being achieved in the figures published today, including in terms of those patients waiting longest. There has been a c. 7% reduction in the total number of patients waiting over 12 months since this time last year, and a corresponding reduction of c. 16% in the number waiting over 18 months. We’ve seen significant longer-term improvements in waiting times since the multi-annual WLAP approach was initiated in September 2021.
The figures indicate that at the end of February 2025, there were 700,320 patients on the active hospital scheduled care waiting list. The delivery of elective care in the early months of the year is impacted by the winter surge in demand for unscheduled care and because of elevated levels of respiratory illness circulating. Therefore, the increase in waiting list volumes seen in the February figures is as expected and an anticipated multi-annual trend.
Ireland’s acute hospitals are delivering higher levels of activity and treating many more patients than ever before. The latest hospital rolling 12-month activity report published by the HSE gives insight into acute activity levels, with millions of patients being seen and treated annually within our hospital service. The report outlines that there was c. 3.9 million OPD, and c. 1.9 million IPDC attendances during the period covered by the report. In comparison with the levels of activity delivered in the full year 2022, these figures represent increases of c. 15% for OPD and c.12% for IPDC activity.
In addition to this planned care, our hospitals also treated c. 1.8 million patients during this same period in emergency care, which represents a c. 10% increase on the full year 2022 and reflects the continuing demands on our hospitals. Increased emergency department attendances and demand in unscheduled care can result in some cancellations of elective procedures, and the impact this will have on patients is recognised.
While the Health Service does not wish to see a growth in numbers waiting for care, growth in the number of referrals to our hospital services has a positive aspect as it is indicative of people accessing the services that they need, an increased awareness of services and reflects an expansion of services.
For 2025, further investment has been secured to continue the multi-annual approach to reduce and reform acute hospital waiting lists. With the 2025 WLAP, the Department of Health, the HSE and the NTPF are taking the next steps in evolving the multi-annual approach towards achieving this Government’s vision of a public healthcare service where everyone has timely and transparent access to high-quality scheduled care services, where and when they require them.
