New targets to cut waiting lists by the end of this year have been set out under the national Waiting List Action Plan for 2025, published by the Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill.
The aim is to have 50% of patients waiting less than the Sláintecare targets of 10 weeks for their first outpatient appointment, and 12 weeks for inpatient or day care, by the end of this year.
It also seeks to cut the "weighted average waiting time" for a planned operation to 5.5 months by the end of the year.
Each of the new 6 Health Regions will now have to develop a Regional Waiting List Action Plan, to show how the national targets can be delivered in their areas.
The national action plan says that "the targets set out in this document are national targets and it is acknowledged that there will be variation in achievement across Regions and specialties due to contextual factors and challenges".
The most recent national waiting lists show there were over 808,000 patients waiting to be treated, or be seen at hospitals, at the end of December 2024.
The total figure a year earlier in December 2023 was over 801,000.
The number of long waiters - those waiting over 12 months - has been reducing.
The current national hospital waiting list of 808,000 patients is mostly made up of 557,187 patients due to be seen by a consultant, for the first time, at an outpatient department for assessment.
Under the new plan, the national target this year is to increase the proportion of patients seen at outpatients, waiting less than 12 months, by 90%.
It also aims to reduce the proportion of patients waiting over 24 months, or at risk of waiting over 24 months by 90%, by the end of this year.
Under Budget 2025, €420m was allocated for waiting list initiatives this year.
Of this, €190m is for the HSE and €230m is for the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
The number of patients being added to national hospital waiting lists has been increasing each year.
Last year, over 1.8 million people were added to the lists, up 5.6% on the previous year.
Weighted Average target
The inclusion of a "weighted average" in the plan this year to cut scheduled operations to 5.5 months is explained by the Department of Health in the document this way.
It takes account of both how long people are waiting (the time band that people are waiting in) and also the amount of people waiting within each time band.
The Department of Health says the more people within a given time band, the more "weight" that time band has, when calculating the average waiting time across all time bands.
It says that "the Weighted Average Wait Time is calculated using the number of patients waiting per monthly time band, divided by the total number of patients waiting, multiplied by the midpoint of the wait time band associated with the number of patients time band".
