Patients had to wait 218 days... to get onto treatment waiting list

SOME HSE patients had to wait 218 days before even being put on a waiting list for treatment, a hospital audit has shown.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund audit of three hospitals in Dublin and three in Cork has also discovered that some patients listed as ‘urgent’ are waiting more than 18 months to be treated.

Health Minister Simon Harris is now to extend the NTPF waiting list audit he commissioned to other acute hospitals nationwide after the sample audit found a string of waiting list protocol breaches. Patients were either not prioritised correctly or not prioritised at all according to their clinical needs, it found.

In the audit into waiting lists operated by Cork University Hospital, it noted: ‘Of the 36 Admission Booking Forms reviewed, the audit team found evidence of 19 patients whereby the “decision to admit” date on the booking form was not the “date added” to the waiting list.

‘For 14 of these patients, the “date added” was the administration “transaction date” with the furthest transaction date being 216 days after the “decision to admit”.’

For the Mater Hospital, it noted: ‘8 patients were not waitlisted within 1 working day. Days ranged between 3-218 days’.

This means that some patients were waiting up to 218 days to be placed on a waiting list.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund audit of three hospitals in Dublin and three in Cork has discovered some patients listed as ‘urgent’ waiting more than 18 months for treatment.

In the Mater Hospital audit, for example, the report noted: ‘The audit team found evidence of two patients listed on the active inpatient and day-case waiting list that were planned procedures.

‘The audit team also observed ten of the 40 patients reviewed were clinically prioritised as “urgent” of which three patients are waiting 12-15 months, 1 patient waiting 15-18 months and 6 waiting 18+ months.’

In addition, patients were put on waiting lists by the listing consultant after their GP, or another consultant simply asked for them to be put on it. This was especially the case with people awaiting cataract operations.

The report noted: ‘The audit team observed a number of patients across all hospitals who had been “direct” listed onto an inpatient or day-case waiting list. All of these patients would have

Two waiting lists ran side by side

by-passed the outpatient service in the hospitals audited.’

The audit, into six hospitals, found in some cases two waiting lists running side by side – one run by the hospital, another run by the consultants.

In the Mater Hospital audit, this is described as ‘evidence of a dual system for clinical triage in operation for outpatient referrals where there is both a manual review/recording of clinical priority on referral letters and a system review/recording of clinical priority via a “consultant worklist” on Patient Centre which is resulting in non-standardised practice.’

The hospitals audited were Cork University Hospital, Cork University Maternity Hospital, and the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital, also in Cork. Also audited were the Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin, the Mater Hospital and Tallaght Hospital in Dublin.