Legislation and proactive resourcing is urgently required to tackle spiralling hospital waiting lists, which present a genuine threat to the health and wellbeing of thousands around the country, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson P\u00e1draig Rice.<\/p>\n
Deputy Rice said:<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost 120,000 patients have been on a hospital waiting list for over a year \u2013 how can that be considered acceptable?<\/p>\n
\u201cSl\u00e1intecare set out the core wait times of ten weeks for outpatients and 12 weeks for inpatient and day cases – these wait times were to be underpinned by legislation and implemented on a phased basis by 2023, but that did not happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike so many other Sl\u00e1intecare recommendations, the government has decided against implementing this key action.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn February 2025, the Minister published the waiting list action plan with an aim that 50% of patients would wait less than the Sl\u00e1intecare targets by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in December 2025, outpatient appointments were 68.2% over target, up from 67.7% in December 2024, while inpatient appointments were 58.8% over the Sl\u00e1intecare target, up from 55.9% the previous December.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime and again, these targets are being missed and people are waiting far too long to get access to healthcare services.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupply-side interventions are desperately needed not just to increase capacity in our hospitals but also crucially to increase capacity in primary and community care settings – but these policies alone will not address the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cSl\u00e1intecare is clear on the requirement for maximum wait-time guarantees and the need to ensure that people responsible for holding those guarantees are held to account. That is why we need legislation, as well as improved bed capacity and additional staff to achieve safe staffing levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government must reaffirm its commitment to Sl\u00e1intecare and implement its recommendations to address the state of perpetual crisis in our health service.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 12th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Legislation and proactive resourcing is urgently required to tackle spiralling hospital waiting lists, which present a genuine threat to the health and wellbeing of thousands around the country, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson P\u00e1draig Rice. Deputy Rice said: \u201cAlmost 120,000 patients have been on a hospital waiting list for over a year \u2013 how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,726,642,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-hse","category-padraig-rice","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n