25 November 2004

NI hospital waiting lists worst in UK

The number of people waiting for hospital treatment has climbed by more than 40% in the last eight years, a new report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office has revealed.

At present Northern Ireland’s hospital waiting list is 68% higher than in England and, since 1996 local waiting lists have increased by 42%.

Dr Brian Patterson, chairman of the BMA's GPs' Committee in Northern Ireland, said: "I think the report very clearly says what we should do is measure the time from when a GP decides the patient should go to hospital to when they actually get the care they need," he said.

"This is where the camouflaging is going on. There is a huge pool of people who are waiting up to three years to get an opinion from a hospital just to get on a waiting list."

Ulster Unionist Health Spokesman, Rev Martin Smyth, described the situation as “deplorable”.

“Today’s Northern Ireland Audit Office Report confirms what many of us had suspected - waiting queues in the Province’s hospitals are the longest in the UK,” the south Belfast MP said.

The Northern Ireland Chest, Heart and Stroke Association also condemned the figures.

Chief Executive Andrew Dougal said: "The Audit Office report shows that Northern Ireland is the worst place in the UK to live when waiting for in-patient treatment in hospital.

"We were horrified to discover that five patients in Northern Ireland had to wait more than a year for cardiac surgery, while in England and Wales nobody had to wait 12 months."

A Department of Health spokesman said despite today’s figures substantial progress had been made in recent years to improve the management of waiting lists.

"Between September 2002 and June 2004 the number of total waiters reduced by over 15%, and the number of patients waiting longer than 18 months reduced by almost 65%," said the spokesman.

(MB)