Hospital Activity

Our public hospitals provide a mix of both planned and emergency healthcare services at more than 50 hospitals in communities across the country.

There are a number of different ways that patients are seen and treated in hospitals depending on whether the patient stays overnight and whether or not the hospital appointment was planned or unplanned, in the case of an emergency.

Outpatient

An outpatient appointment at a hospital is a patient consultation with a consultant or a member of their team.

Day case

A day case is a planned/scheduled admission to a hospital for a patient on an elective basis for care and/or treatment which does not require use of a hospital bed overnight and who is discharged on the same day as planned.

Inpatient

An inpatient is a planned/scheduled or emergency admission for care and/or treatment for a patient who attends a hospital for care or treatment and will require the use of a hospital bed overnight.

Emergency care

This is not planned, and it is not possible to make an appointment. Patients may go to an Emergency Department with a referral letter from their GP, in an ambulance following an accident or by walking in. Emergency care also includes patients who attend injury units.

Waiting lists

While hospital teams provide over 3.4 million outpatient consultations, emergency care to over 1.6 million people, day case care to over one million people and over 600,000 people are inpatients in hospital each year, waiting lists and waiting times exist in many areas.

We acknowledge that patients are waiting too long to be seen for outpatient consultations and for procedures. Our hospitals and national teams are working to respond to and address the issue of access to care.

The 2023 Waiting List Action Plan, developed by the Department of Health and the HSE, is our programme of work to deliver sustained reductions in waiting lists numbers and waiting times. €443 million has been allocated in 2023 to the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund for extra public and private activity and to enable longer term reform.

Hospital activity updates

Hospital Waiting Times Performance

National Service Plan Targets for Maximum Waiting Times (MWT) are set for inpatient and day case, outpatient and GI scopes. The reports below show how Hospital Groups and individual hospitals are performing against these targets.

The Maximum Waiting Time NSP Targets are as follows: