Over 500 patients were waiting for more than 12 hours in Northern Ireland’s emergency departments (EDs) on Monday, according to Dr Russell McLaughlin, the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine in Northern Ireland. As winter pressures and the New Year period kick in, 866 people in total are waiting to be treated in EDs across the country. “Exit block” – a situation where there are not enough hospital beds available for patients – is the primary reason for the long waiting times, with a total of 388 people waiting for admission to a hospital bed.
Dr McLaughlin warned that the current situation was unsafe, stating that there is “reasonably good scientific evidence” showing that those who wait five hours or more in hospitals have an increased chance of “coming to harm”. He added that this is “a system-wide failure and not an emergency department failure”.
Health officials have appealed for extra staff to come into work during what is described as an “extremely busy” holiday period. Northern Ireland requires urgent funding to clear waiting list backlogs and improve healthcare, according to a report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office published in October 2021. It noted that the number of patients waiting for elective care had risen by over 450,000 in a nine-year period from 2014 to 2023, while the government aims to ensure no patient waits for emergency care for more than 12 hours.
In May 2022, £34.6m was pulled from waiting lists to balance the Department of Health’s books following what it described as the “severely constrained” 22/23 budget set by the Northern Ireland secretary. To address the matter, the government is offering money only if Stormont power-sharing is re-established, although last year, unelected civil servants were faced with making significant cuts after Chris Heaton-Harris set a budget for Stormont in the absence of local ministers
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