THE number of patients waiting longer than 12 hours in Northern Ireland’s emergency departments (EDs) has “increased markedly” over the last five years.
Ministerial targets from 2023 state that 95% of patients attending any ED should be treated and discharged, or admitted, within four hours and that no patient should have to wait over 12 hours.
But the latest Department of Health figures for emergency care showed patients waiting 12 hours or more “increased markedly” between 2019/20 to 2023/24, from 45,401 to 121,043 – with the Royal Victoria’s ED in Belfast reporting the biggest increase (6,508 to 24,095).
Four-hour waiting times being met also decreased from 65% to 47% over the same five-year period.
This is despite less people attending EDs, down 55,000 (6.8%) from 814,273 in 2019/20 to 758,645 in 2023/24.
The number of patients referred to EDs by GPs over the five years also increased from 16.7% to 19%.
The figures also showed that the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) did not meet any of its average targets for responding to life-threatening emergencies in 2023.
Category one calls are supposed to be responded to within eight minutes on average, with 90% of category one calls reached within 15 minutes.
A NIAS spokesperson issued an apology for the prolonged waits, stating there was “insufficient operational staff to meet the level of demand”.
“NIAS has been highlighting for a number of years that we have been unable to respond to calls within these targets, and regrettably this has continued during the past year,” they said, adding that work would continue with the Department of Health in relation to ambulance capacity.
Over the last year, 2023/24, the figures detailed that a total of 800,899 patients attended urgent and emergency care services - including 758,645 (new and unplanned reviews) attending an ED, around 8,000 more than in 2022/23.
A further 136,140 called PhoneFirst or attended Urgent Care Centre services without being referred to an ED.
The number of patients waiting more than 12 hours in EDs increased from 106,990 in 2022/23 to 121,043 in 2023/24,
Nearly a quarter (23.3%) of ED attendances were in the Belfast Trust area, with over three-fifths (61.4%) of patients attending EDs starting their treatment within two hours of being triaged.
Between 2022/23 and 2023/24, performance against four-hour ED waiting targets also decreased from 50 % to 47%, respectively.
