426 patients waiting for treatment at Cavan General Hospital

The hospital waiting list figures for March have been published by the National Treatment Purchase Fund (NTPF) and indicate there are currently 426 outpatients/cases at Cavan General Hospital awaiting treatment.

This comprises 407 adults and 19 children. Overall there are 369 adults and 18 children or over 90% waiting up to six months for treatment. Some 27 adults and one child have been waiting six to 12 months; while eight adults are 12-18 months on the list and three adults have been waiting 18 months or more.

Overall, there has been a slight reduction (7%) in the number of patients waiting over 12 months compared to this time last year. Those waiting over 18 months have dropped by 15%.

“We’ve seen significant longer-term improvements in waiting times since the multi-annual WLAP approach was initiated in September 2021,” said a spokesperson.

Meanwhile, on the national front, the figures indicate that at the end of March 2025, there were 707,439 patients on the active hospital scheduled care waiting list.

“The delivery of elective care in the early months of the year is impacted by the winter surge in demand for unscheduled care and because of elevated levels of respiratory illness circulating,” the spokesperson continued.

This is expected to stabilise from April onwards and “the growth in OPD [Out Patient Department] will be mitigated”.

Elsewhere, Ireland’s acute hospitals are delivering higher levels of activity and treating many more patients than ever before. The latest hospital rolling 12-month activity report published by the HSE gives insight into acute activity levels, with millions of patients being seen and treated annually within our hospital service. The report outlines that there was 3.9 million OPD, and around 1.9 million IPDC [in-patient and day cases] attendances during the full year 2024. In comparison with the levels of activity delivered in 2023, these figures represent increases of nine per cent for OPD and five per cent for IPDC activity.

The National Treatment Purchase Fund works with hospitals to help patients access healthcare as quickly as possible. It does this by sourcing capacity in the public and private healthcare systems. These treatments are arranged in 20 private hospitals and 39 public hospitals throughout the island of Ireland.