Accredited Official Statistics

All statistics contained within this publication are Accredited Official Statistics except for outpatient activity statistics.

Published by: Information & Analysis Directorate, Department of Health
Statisticians: Brian Reilly, Thomas Cash & Sally Pattison
Contact:

Reporting Date: 30 September 2024
Publication Date: 28 November 2024
Date of Next Publication: 27 February 2025

Coverage: Northern Ireland
Frequency: Quarterly

On 9 November 2023 the South Eastern Health and Social Care (HSC) Trust launched ‘encompass’ - a new electronic patient record system. The system also went live in Belfast HSC Trust on 6 June 2024 and in Northern HSC Trust on 7 November 2024, and its rollout across the other Trusts will continue in 2025. Consequently, as South Eastern HSC Trust continues to transition to completely digitised health records, its data have been presented separately. Given the relatively recent transition of Belfast Trust some, although not all, of its data were available at the time of publication.

The data which it has been possible to include for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts, have been presented in a separate ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section and relevant charts. These figures, sourced from encompass, are considered to be ‘official statistics in development’, which are a subset of Official Statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. While caution must be exercised when using these figures, they are a meaningful representation of what they measure and are of sufficient quality for publication and use.

Charts and figures presented throughout this report, with the exception of the previously mentioned ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section and relevant charts, exclude patients waiting for a first outpatient appointment in the South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts. This is to allow comparisons to be made for the three remaining HSC Trusts over previous years. As such, any Northern Ireland level figures throughout this report only include data for Northern, Southern and Western HSC Trusts.


This statistical release presents information on waiting times for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment in Northern Ireland and reports on the performance of the Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts against the draft waiting times target, which states that:

“50% of patients should wait no longer than nine weeks for a first outpatient appointment; with no patient waiting longer than 52 weeks.”

Information is detailed on the number of patients waiting and length of time waiting by HSC Trust and specialty. Provisional statistics on outpatient activity are also included.

All of the data contained in this release are published in Excel file format to facilitate secondary analysis. They are available at the following link:

https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/northern-ireland-waiting-time-statistics-outpatient-waiting-times-september-2024

Statistics in this report refer to the number of patients waiting and the length of time they had been waiting as at the reporting date. They do not indicate completed waiting times or expected future waiting times.

Key Figures

First Consultant-led Outpatient Appointment Waiting Times

Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust, and validated data that were available for Belfast HSC Trust at the time of publication, are reported separately in the ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section.

  • 238,929 patients were waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment at hospitals in the Northern, Southern and Western HSC Trusts on 30 September 2024, 3.6% (8,399) more than than on 30 June 2024 (230,530), and 8.7% (19,175) more than on 30 September 2023 (219,754).

  • 56.8% of patients were waiting for an appointment under the General Surgery, ENT, Gynaecology, Dermatology or Neurology specialties.

  • The median waiting time was 59.4 weeks and the 95th percentile waiting time was 272.9 weeks.

  • 85.9% (205,125) of patients were waiting more than nine weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment on 30 September 2024, compared with 84.2% (194,207) on 30 June 2024 and 84% (184,625) on 30 September 2023.

  • 52.6% (125,768) of patients were waiting more than 52 weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment on 30 September 2024, compared with 50.8% (117,027) on 30 June 2024 and 48.4% (106,433) on 30 September 2023.

Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts

First Consultant-led Outpatient Appointment Waiting Times

The figures provided for the South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts, sourced from encompass, are considered to be ‘official statistics in development’. Therefore, caution must be exercised when using these figures.

South Eastern HSC Trust

  • 115,596 patients were waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment at hospitals in the South Eastern HSC Trust on 30 September 2024.

  • 49.9% of patients were waiting for an appointment under the ENT, Gynaecology, Plastic Surgery, Dermatology or General Surgery specialties.

  • The median waiting time was 69.7 weeks and the 95th percentile waiting time was 311.9 weeks.

  • 88.5% (102,330) of patients were waiting more than nine weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment on 30 September 2024.

  • 58.0% (67,008) of patients were waiting more than 52 weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment on 30 September 2024.

  • 4,163 patients were waiting for an ICATS appointment on 30 September 2024.

  • There were 20,058 first outpatient attendances at consultant-led outpatient services on 30 September 2024.

Belfast HSC Trust

  • 152,087 patients were waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment at hospitals in the Belfast HSC Trust on 30 September 2024.

Outpatient Waiting List

Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust and the validated data that were available for Belfast HSC Trust at the time of publication are reported separately. The previously published time series which includes all Trusts up to 30 September 2023 has, however, been included in Figure 1 to provide context.

Unlike legacy (pre-encompass) data, figures sourced from encompass are currently taken from the point of completed patient triage.

As at 30 September 2024, there were 238,929 patients waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment at hospitals in the Northern, Southern and Western Trusts.

The number of patients waiting has increased by 3.6% (8,399) from 30 June 2024 and increased by 8.7% (19,175) from 30 September 2023.


Figure 1: Patients Waiting for a First Consultant-led Outpatient Appointment

30 June 2008 to 30 September 2024

This line chart shows that the number of patients waiting has risen steadily from 44,149 on 31 March 2013 to 238,929 on 30 September 2024.

Waiting List by Specialty

Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust are reported separately in the ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section and Figure 2b, and validated data for Belfast HSC Trust were not available at the time of publication.

Note that the specialty classification used in encompass differs significantly from that of the legacy system. Therefore, specialties are no longer comparable with pre-encompass data or what is currently reported for the Northern, Southern and Western Trusts.

At 30 September 2024, the largest waiting lists were for General Surgery (37,453 patients) and ENT (34,409 patients).

Of specialties with at least 5,000 patients waiting, the greatest proportionate growth was in the Gastroenterology specialty, which grew by 31.7% (2,973 patients). The greatest proportionate reduction was in the Ophthalmology specialty, with 9.7% (1,187) fewer patients.


Figure 2a: Patients Waiting for a First Consultant-led Outpatient Appointment by Specialty

30 September 2024 compared with 30 September 2023

The bar chart above shows the number of patients waiting for an appointment in each specialty as at 30 September 2024, with markers comparing numbers as at 30 September 2023. Only specialties with at least 5,000 patients waiting are shown.

The figures provided for the South Eastern HSC Trust, sourced from encompass, are considered to be ‘official statistics in development’. Therefore, caution must be exercised when using these figures.

At 30 September 2024, the largest waiting lists in South Eastern HSC Trust were for ENT (14,989 patients) and Gynaecology (13,077 patients).


Figure 2b: Patients Waiting for a First Consultant-led Outpatient Appointment by Specialty at South Eastern Trust

30 September 2024

The bar chart above shows the number of patients waiting for an appointment at the South Eastern HSC Trust in each specialty as at 30 September 2024. Only specialties with at least 2,000 patients waiting are shown.

Median and 95th Percentile Waiting Times

Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust are reported separately in the ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section, and validated data for Belfast HSC Trust were not available at the time of publication.

Exclusions From This Analysis

For the legacy (pre-encompass) data, Paedaetrics, Genito-Urinary Medicine, Learning Disability and Old Age Psychiatry specialties are excluded from the analysis due to limited data availability.

Information required to produce this analysis is not available prior to 30 June 2020.


The median waiting time is the middle value when all patients are ordered by length of time waiting. This is preferred over the mean as an average of waiting times because waiting times tend to be skewed by longer waits and therefore more patients are waiting for less time than the mean.

The 95th percentile waiting time is the length of time that 95% of patients have been waiting equal to or less than i.e. one in twenty patients have been waiting longer than this time. The 95th percentile is used as an indication of the range of current waiting times without being distorted by extreme values or the prioritisation of urgent waits.

At 30 September 2024, the median waiting time for a first outpatient appointment was 59.4 weeks and the 95th percentile was 272.9 weeks (approximately 5 years and 12 weeks).


Figure 3: Median and 95th Percentile Waiting Times

30 June 2020 to 30 September 2024

This line chart shows that the median waiting time has increased from 40.1 weeks at 30 June 2020 to a peak of 59.3 weeks at 31 December 2021 then decreased to 59.4 weeks at 30 September 2024. The 95th percentile waiting time has increased steadily from 158.1 weeks at 30 June 2020 to 272.9 weeks at 30 September 2024.

Waiting Times by Specialty

Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust are reported separately in the ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section and Figure 4b, and validated data for Belfast HSC Trust were not available at the time of publication.

Exclusions From This Analysis

For the legacy (pre-encompass) data, Paedaetrics, Genito-Urinary Medicine, Learning Disability and Old Age Psychiatry specialties are excluded from the analysis due to limited data availability.


There is a large variation in median and 95th percentile waiting times across different specialties. Low medians relative to the 95th percentile can be an indication of large numbers of patients recently joining a list or a greater proportion of urgent patients within a specialty.


Figure 4a: Median and 95th Percentile Waiting Times by Specialty

30 September 2024

The bar chart above shows the median and 95th percentile waiting times for specialties where at least 5,000 patients were waiting for appointments at 30 September 2024. The longest median waiting time was 98.7 weeks in the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery specialty.

Neurology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Rheumatology, General Medicine, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Thoracic Medicine, ENT, Gynaecology and Ophthalmology specialties all had median waiting times over 1 year.

At least one in twenty (5%) patients waiting for Neurology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Urology, Rheumatology, General Medicine, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Dermatology or Thoracic Medicine had been waiting over 5 years.

The figures provided for the South Eastern HSC Trust, sourced from encompass, are considered to be ‘official statistics in development’. Therefore, caution must be exercised when using these figures.

Figure 4b: Median and 95th Percentile Waiting Times by Specialty in South Eastern HSC Trust

30 September 2024

The bar chart above shows the median and 95th percentile waiting times for specialties where at least 2,000 patients were waiting for appointments at 30 September 2024. Please note that this specialty classification differs from that currently used by the Northern, Southern and Western HSC Trusts.

Performance against Targets

Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust are reported separately in the ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section, and validated data for Belfast HSC Trust were not available at the time of publication.

The draft waiting times target states that 50% of patients should wait no longer than 9 weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment; with no patient waiting longer than 52 weeks.

This target was introduced in 2016/17.


Figure 5: Patients Waiting Under 9 Week Target

30 June 2016 to 30 September 2024

The line and stacked bar charts above illustrate the percentage and number of patients waiting less than 9 weeks from 30 June 2016 to 30 September 2024.

Across this period the target of 50% of patients waiting less than 9 weeks was not achieved, with the highest proportion under 9 weeks being 39.2% (36,045 of 92,045 patients) at 30 June 2016.

As at 30 September 2024, 14.1% of patients were waiting less than 9 weeks, a decrease from 16% at 30 September 2023 and a decrease from 26.2% at 30 September 2019.

Figure 6: Patients Waiting Over 52 Week Target

30 June 2016 to 30 September 2024

The line and stacked bar charts above illustrate the percentage and number of patients waiting over 52 weeks from 30 June 2016 to 30 September 2024.

Across this period the target of no patients waiting longer than 52 weeks was not achieved, with the highest proportion over 52 weeks being 54.8% (92,730 of 169,201 patients) at 31 March 2021.

At 30 September 2024, 52.6% of patients were waiting longer than 52 weeks, an increase from 48.4% at 30 September 2023 and an increase from 30.7% in 30 September 2019.

Performance by HSC Trust

Figures in this section do not include the Belfast HSC Trust as validated data for it were not available at the time of publication. The figures provided here for South Eastern HSC Trust have been sourced from encompass and are considered to be ‘official statistics in development’. Therefore, caution must be exercised when using these figures.

Draft target: 50% of patients should wait no longer than 9 weeks and no patient should wait longer than 52 weeks for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment.

Data shown in this section indicates the Health and Social Care Trust responsible for a patient’s care. As Day Case Procedure Centres are a regional service, they have been reported separately from HSC Trusts.


Figure 7: Waiting Times by HSC Trust and Day Case Procedure Centres

30 September 2024

The proportionate stacked bar chart above breaks down the length of time patients have been waiting by the HSC Trust responsible for their service.

No Trust met the target to have 50% of patients waiting less than 9 weeks, nor the target to have no patients waiting longer than 52 weeks.

Outpatient Activity

Provisional Statistics

Outpatient attendance data are fully validated once per year. Statistics in this section are subject to revision in subsequent releases and do not hold National Statistics status.

Fully validated outpatient activity statistics are published annually at the following link:

https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/articles/outpatient-activity


Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust are reported separately separately in the ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section and validated data for Belfast HSC Trust were not available at the time of publication.

Between 01 July and 30 September 2024, there were 53,321 attendances at first outpatient appointments, of which 1.8% (979) were at independent sector providers commissioned by HSC Trusts and the remaining 98.2% (52,342) at HSC Trust hospitals.


Figure 8: Number of First Outpatient Attendances Commissioned

Quarter Ending June 2008 to Quarter Ending September 2024

The bar chart above indicates the number of patients who attended first outpatient appointments in each quarter between June 2008 and September 2024. The number of patients attending remained steady from 2008 to March 2020. A sharp decrease was observed in June 2020 and since then activity has risen steadily and has almost returned to prior levels.

ICATS Waiting List

Integrated Clinical Assessment and Treatment Services (ICATS) are outpatient services provided by multi-disciplinary teams of health service professionals. They provide assessment, treatment and advisory services in a variety of primary, community and secondary care settings. Patients who do not require urgent treatment are referred to ICATS teams, if the patient’s condition requires the attention of a consultant, arrangements are made for the patient to be referred for a hospital outpatient appointment.

As ICATS services are not consultant-led, patients waiting for an ICATS appointment are not included in the statistics for consultant-led outpatient services presented in the sections above.


Figures in this section do not include the South Eastern or Belfast HSC Trusts. Data for South Eastern HSC Trust are reported separately in the ‘Key Figures for South Eastern and Belfast HSC Trusts’ section and validated data for Belfast HSC Trust were not available at the time of publication.

At 30 September 2024, there were 17,578 patients waiting for a first ICATS outpatient appointment. The number of patients waiting has increased by 8.2% (1,337) from 30 June 2024 and increased by 17.5% (2,621) from 30 September 2023.


Figure 9: Patients Waiting for a First ICATS Outpatient Appointment

30 June 2011 to 30 September 2024

This line chart shows that the number of patients waiting for a first ICATS outpatient appointment rose steadily from 4,165 on 30 June 2011 to 17,578 on 30 September 2024.

Data Sources, Quality and Guidance

Data sources
The sources for the data contained in this release are the HSC Trust’s Patient Administration Systems, encompass, the DoH Outpatient Waiting Times Dataset and the DoH CH3, QOAR, R-QOAR, V-QOAR and IS1 returns.


First consultant-led outpatient appointment
An outpatient appointment is to enable a patient to see a consultant or a member of their team following an outpatient referral. The majority of referrals will be from a GP however they may also be received from a range of other sources.

These appointments provide an opportunity for consultation, investigation and minor treatment. Appointments can be face-to-face or virtual and patients are not admitted into hospital.

A first attendance is the first of a series or the only attendance at an outpatient service.


Measurement of waiting times
Statistics in this report refer to the number of patients waiting and the length of time they had been waiting as at the reporting date. They do not indicate completed waiting times or expected future waiting times.
Waiting time for a first outpatient appointment begins on the date the HSC Trust receives a referral to a consultant-led service.

Patients who cannot attend or miss their appointment have their waiting time recorded from the date they informed the HSC Trust that they could not attend or the date of the missed appointment.

Patients suspended for medical or social reasons as at the reporting date are not included in the statistics. If re-instated, the period of suspension is excluded from the waiting time.

Time bands relate to the number of completed weeks a patient has been waiting. For example, a patient waiting exactly 6 weeks would be included in the 0-6 week time band and a patient waiting 6 weeks and 1 day would be included in the 6-9 week time band.


Reporting patients against Health and Social Care Trusts
A number of services may not be provided at a patient’s local HSC Trust, and instead are provided as centralised services for Northern Ireland.

As patients are reported against the HSC Trust responsible for the service to which they have been referred, users should be aware of this when making comparisons across Trusts.

In some cases a consultant from one HSC Trust may provide a “visiting” service at another HSC Trust, and so the patient may not be reported at the HSC Trust at which they attend. Patients are reported against the HSC Trust responsible for the service to which they have been referred.


Day Case Procedure Centres
From February 2019, Day Case Procedure Centres (DPCs) are being introduced to deliver large volumes of non-complex routine surgery.

Patients waiting for specific non-urgent surgical treatments can be referred to a DPC for treatment rather than attend the hospital site they may ordinarily have been referred to.

Patients waiting for an outpatient appointment at a Day Case Procedure Centre are included in these statistics.

As these services are managed on a regional basis, patients are not allocated as waiting at a particular HSC Trust and where a Trust split is used in these statistics, the patients are instead reported separately against Day Case Procedure Centres.


Patients with multiple waits
Some patients will be on more than one waiting list or be on the same waiting list for more than one appointment due to having multiple conditions. Such patients are counted more than once depending on how many times they are waiting.


Patients resident outside Northern Ireland and private patients
Statistics on patients waiting for outpatient appointments include patients living outside Northern Ireland and privately funded patients waiting for treatment in Health Service hospitals in Northern Ireland.


Outpatient activity
Provisional statistics on outpatient activity are presented to provide contextual information in relation to waiting lists. Hospital data are sourced from the HSC Trusts and Independent Sector data are provided by the Strategic Planning and Performance Group in the Department of Health.

These data are not Accredited Official Statistics and have not been validated or quality assured by HSC Trusts prior to publication. Data quality is addressed on an ongoing basis and figures are subject to revision in subsequent publications as hospital records may not be fully up to date as at the publication date.

Provisional statistics on outpatient activity do not include:
• ICATS appointments
• Ward attenders


Further technical guidance
Technical guidance and definitions, as well as notes on how to use the data contained within this statistical release are available at the following link: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/articles/outpatient-waiting-times 


Additional Information and Data

Data from this publication
Data detailed in this publication are available in Excel file format to aid secondary analysis.

Excel and CSV files are available to download at the following link: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/publications/northern-ireland-waiting-time-statistics-outpatient-waiting-times-september-2024


Other waiting times publications
Statistics on waiting times for inpatients, diagnostic services, cancer and emergency care are available at the following link: https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/topics/doh-statistics-and-research/hospital-waiting-times-statistics


Accredited Official Statistics
National Statistics Logo

Accredited Official Statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has accredited these statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards.

Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing or via the OSR website Office for Statistics Regulation (https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk).

It is the Department of Health’s responsibility, as the producer, to maintain compliance with the standards expected of Accredited Official Statistics. If we become concerned about whether these statistics are still meeting the appropriate standards, we will discuss any concerns with the OSR promptly. Accredited Official Statistics status can be removed at any point when the highest standards are not maintained and reinstated when standards are restored.

In November 2021, the OSR conducted a compliance check on these statistics and confirmed that they should continue to be labelled as ‘Accredited Official Statistics’. Further details can be found at: https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/correspondence/mark-pont-to-eugene-mooney-Northern-ireland-ni-outpatient-waiting-time-statistics/

In May 2022, the OSR extended the accredited official statistics designation to include Day Case Procedure Centre waiting times statistics.

Since the assessments by the OSR, we have continued to comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Find out more about the Code of Practice for Statistics at: https://code.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/.

Find out more about Official Statistics at: https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/about-the-authority/uk-statistical-system/types-of-official-statistics/.


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Please contact Hospital Waits Information Branch for assistance with accessibility requirements or alternative formats. Email:


Copyright
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