It underlines the extent of the waiting list crisis facing the Northern health service, which is struggling with budgetary and other pressures and has no minister for health due to the ongoing suspension of the political institutions at Stormont.
The September 2023 report by the department analysed north-south and east-west waiting list trends according to inpatient/day cases and outpatients. According to the report, the number of patients waiting for an inpatient/day case appointment in Northern Ireland – 119,095 as at June 2023 – exceeded the number on the same waiting list in the Republic of Ireland, even though it has a much larger population of five million, compared to 1.9 million.
The disparity increases when comparing those who have been waiting for an inpatient/day case appointment for more than 12 months, with 11 times as many people per million – 33,027 compared to 3,015 – on the list in the North compared to the South.