Waiting times data shows the north’s health service is in a “precarious state”, it has been warned.
Latest Department of Health figures show more than 340,000 people in Northern Ireland were waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment across four trust areas on June 30 2024.
More than half have been waiting for more than a year.
The latest waiting time figures for the five trusts are incomplete or considered “in development”, however, due to the rollout of a new patient digital record system.
The new electronic patient record system, Encompass, has been launched across the South Eastern and Belfast trusts with the further rollout planned to continue into next year.
Figures from the South Eastern Health Trust are the first to be published since it started to digitise health records.
Figures for Belfast Trust have not been included as the data is not available.
Almost 108,000 people were waiting for an inpatient or day case admission to hospital on June 30.
The worst waiting times are in ear, nose and throat, urology, and trauma and orthopaedics, with patients facing waits of up to six years.
In the first figures available for South Eastern Health Trust since it launched Encompass, waiting lists have increased by 3.4% since March 31 2024 and 7.7% since December 31 2023.
In contrast, fewer patients were waiting in the Northern, Southern and Western Trusts at the end of June 2024 compared to the last quarter and to June 2023.
However, no Trust met the draft target to have 50% of patients waiting less than nine weeks, nor the target to have no patients waiting longer than 52 weeks.
Targets for diagnostic waiting times are also not being met.
Dr Alan Stout, chair of BMA’s Northern Ireland Council said the data shows continuing pressure on services, impacting patient waiting times and also negatively impacting the clinicians doing their best to provide a service to patients.
“It is hard to hope that one day these figures will bring good news for everyone in Northern Ireland, where we will see waiting times dropping and patients moving swiftly and efficiently through the system and where we will no longer have the longest wait times in the UK,” he said.
“Using median figures, and talking in terms of months also blurs the reality for patients, in fact they will mostly likely be waiting years to be seen.
“It has been for a long time now that we cannot run the health service in the way we have been running it. There needs to be radical change, with clinicians involved in the process to make sure services are delivered in a way that is timely and efficient, and gives patients access to the best treatment so they have the best health outcomes.”
A key part of addressing the issues, he added, was the health services’ ability to retain and recruit doctors.
“Consultants have now settled their pay dispute and we would urge the minister to address the junior doctor dispute as soon as possible and ensure that SAS colleagues do not also take industrial action. We know there are huge budgetary pressures right across Northern Ireland but without the right workforce in place nothing will improve.”
Northern Ireland Director of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England), Niall McGonigle, said because the data was incomplete, it made comparison over time difficult.
“As surgeons working on the ground, we know that Northern Ireland’s health service remains in a precarious state, with huge pressures on a depleted and stretched workforce,” he told the BBC.
