More than 42,000 appointments were cancelled in the UL Hospitals Group due to COVID-19 between March 2020 and the end of last year.
Over 3,500 appointments of the postponed appointments were in Ennis.
A Freedom of Information request from Clare FM shows of the 42,183 cancellations due to COVID in the UL Hospitals Group between March 2020 and December 2021, more than two thirds of them were in University Hospital Limerick.
Around 1 in 12 of the cancellations were at Ennis Hospital.
The majority of the cancellations were at the early stages of the pandemic, with 10,163 appointments cancelled in March of 2020 alone and a further 6,358 the following month.
However, more than 1,700 appointments were cancelled in the second half of 2021, including 198 in December of last year.
Cardiology appointments saw the most cancellations throughout the UL Hospitals Group, with 5,237 overall, or around 12.5 percent.
Endocrinology appointments also saw over 5,000 cancellations between March 2020 and December 2021, with ophthamology and gynaecology appointments also seeing more than 4,000 postponements each.
There were also significant cancellations towards appointments in the areas of paediatrics, general medicine and urology.
The UL Hospitals Group says it’s committed to ensuring all patients whose appointments were deferred during the pandemic will be rescheduled as soon as possible.
The Group says it continues to prioritise time-critical cases and that it has a number of initiatives, including virtual clinics, to address waiting lists in the region.
Statement From The UL Hospitals Group
UL Hospitals Group is committed to ensuring that all patients whose appointments were deferred during the COVID-19 pandemic will be rescheduled as soon as possible. Time-critical cases remain prioritised, and the hospital is directly contacting patients about their new appointments as soon as these are scheduled. In addition, theatre lists have resumed across UHL, St John’s, Ennis, Nenagh and Croom Orthopaedic Hospitals. Outpatient departments in the hospitals are also at full resumption.
There are a number of scheduled care initiatives operating across UL Hospitals Group to address waiting lists. These come under the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF), Hospital Safety Net Service Agreement and the Advanced Clinical Prioritisation Programme. Under the Private Hospital Safety Net Service Agreement, UL Hospitals Group has referred urgent surgical and medical cases to private hospitals.
As well as these initiatives, virtual clinics are being used across our services as a means of identifying patients who can be progressed to in-person treatment, whether for diagnostic imaging, minor procedures, or full episodes of care.
Enhanced access to scheduled care has been highlighted by the Department of Health as a priority for inclusion in the HSE’s 2022 Service Plan, and the need to address access and waiting list challenges is a key strategic priority in the HSE’s corporate plan. The HSE has established a Scheduled Care Transformation Programme to ensure a sustained, system-wide transformation process that tackles the challenge of scheduled care waiting times, improves access to scheduled care services, and ensures the safe delivery of care in the context of the on-going pandemic.
There are also a number of key drivers which will help improve waiting lists in 2022 including the recruitment of additional:
– Consultants
– NCHDs
– Advance Nurse Practitioners
– Clinical Nurse Specialists
– Extended Scope Physiotherapists
– Clerical/Admin Staff Grades
In relation to outpatient appointments, during 2021, 204,278 in-person appointments and 57,862 virtual appointments took place across UL Hospitals Group. This compares to 169,827 in-person appointments and 54,874 virtual appointments in 2020.
