Waiting lists up by 86,300 patients in 2025, figures show

National hospital waiting lists increased by over 86,300 patients last year, new figures show.

At the end of December, there were 894,369 patients waiting to be seen at an outpatient clinic, or for an operation in the country’s hospitals.

It compares with the waiting list figure of 808,061 in December 2024.

The data is from the National Treatment Purchase Fund.

There are currently 107,181 patients waiting for an inpatient, or day case procedure nationally. Of these, 7,540 adults and 510 children have been waiting 18 months or more, which is significantly in breach of the Sláintecare targets.

The increases have been seen in every area, inpatient and day cases, outpatient appointments, and people waiting for a gastrointestinal check.

Excluded from the 894,369 patient total are 42,033 patients listed as “suspended”.

These are patients who are temporarily unfit, or unable to attend due to clinical or personal/social reasons.

The suspension category also includes patients who are being treated through various insourcing or outsourcing initiatives, meaning they are on other lists to be treated using waiting list funding in private or pubic hospitals.

The latest figures show there were 611,987 patients on the outpatient waiting list in December, waiting to be seen by a consultant at a clinic for the first time for assessment.

The hospitals with the longest adult and child waiting lists are: Galway University Hospital with over 12,600 patients waiting; Beaumont Hospital with over 11,000 waiting and the Mater Hospital with 10,350 waiting.

The hospital with the longest list in the specialty of ophthalmology is the Mater with 3,193 patients waiting.

In orthopaedics, Tallaght University Hospital has 2,423 patients on its waiting list.

There are 2,644 patients waiting for plastic surgery at Beaumont Hospital and 2,292 waiting for pain relief at the South Infirmary University Hospital in Cork.

At Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), there are 1,682 patients waiting for paediatric respiratory medicine, 496 waiting for paediatric orthopaedics, 487 for paediatric (ear, nose and throat treatment) and 436 waiting for paediatric surgery.

There are 215 patients at CHI on the spinal surgery waiting list, including for scoliosis surgery. This represents a small reduction on the November waiting list.

Stephen McMahon of the Irish Patients Association said that waiting beyond 12 months for care is associated with worsening health, higher emergency risk and poorer outcomes.

He said that when prolonged delay becomes routine, harm becomes invisible.

Mr McMahon also added that large geographic variations create a postcode lottery of risk, which is incompatible with equitable access to care.

He said the figures show that while some progress was made in children’s services, adult inpatient delays worsened significantly, particularly for those waiting more than 12 months.

In response to the latest figures, the Department of Health said that waiting time, rather than total waiting list numbers, is a more important metric in assessing the performance of the health service.

It said that reducing waiting times brings several benefits, including mitigating the risk of a patient’s condition worsening.

The department said that there were around 58% or 164,000 fewer patients waiting over 12 months, since September 2021.

It added that in the same period there was an improvement of 46% or 5.6 months in the “weighted average wait time” that patients across lists have been waiting.

However, the department added that notwithstanding the focus on waiting times, changes in waiting list volumes continue to be important indicators of waiting list performance.

It said that increases in waiting list volumes continued through most of last year, stabilising towards the end of the year.

The Department of Health is working with the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund to finalise the Waiting List Action Plan for 2026.

The maximum waiting times target set out in the 2017 Sláintecare Report were 10 weeks for an outpatient appointment, and 12 weeks for an inpatient or day case procedure.