The Minister for Health\u2019s new Waiting List Action Plan lacks any credibility after the failure of her last plan, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson P\u00e1draig Rice TD.<\/p>\n
Deputy Rice said:<\/p>\n
\u201cA radically different approach to the one set out today, one which is in line with the reforms set out in Sl\u00e1intecare, is the only way forward for patients and staff \u2013 otherwise, the health service will continue lurching from one crisis to the next.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year\u2019s Waiting List Action Plan target was for 50% of patients to wait less than the Sl\u00e1intecare targets by the end of the year \u2013 but in 2025, outpatient appointments reached just 31.8%, while inpatient appointments were at 41.2%.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost shockingly, December\u2019s figures noted that almost 120,000 patients have been on a hospital waiting list for over a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe maximum wait-time guarantees set out in Sl\u00e1intecare were supposed to be underpinned by legislation, but that never happened – is it any wonder progress has been allowed to drift?<\/p>\n
\u201cLegislation would ensure that the people responsible for holding those guarantees are held to account – just today, the INMO revealed that over 13,000 patients were treated without a bed in hospitals in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe union said that the crisis in acute hospitals is being made worse by a failure to appropriately resource community services – that is at the core of the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite all the talk about reorientating our health service away from acute settings and into the community, little has been done to make that a reality – the Primary Care Centre Programme, for example, is moving at a snail’s pace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2018, the Comptroller and Auditor General examined primary care centre delivery and put forward four recommendations to improve delivery. All four were agreed by the Department of Health and the HSE in 2018 but by last year, not one had been implemented.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe C&AG found that, since then, there had been no change in the average rate of delivery of primary care centres \u2013 despite that a key part of Sl\u00e1intecare is expanding primary and community care.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this rate, it will be 2037 before the current list of primary care centres is fully delivered; to address the permanent crisis in our health service, we also need to see the delivery of elective hospitals prioritised and, crucially, a major increase in staffing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more safely staffed services, and less arbitrary recruitment caps – a seachange in approach is needed from the Minister.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 30th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minister for Health\u2019s new Waiting List Action Plan lacks any credibility after the failure of her last plan, according to Social Democrats health spokesperson P\u00e1draig Rice TD. Deputy Rice said: \u201cA radically different approach to the one set out today, one which is in line with the reforms set out in Sl\u00e1intecare, is the […]<\/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-15194","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