The proportion of public patients attending public hospitals has increased steadily in recent years, according to latest ESRI statistics.

According to the latest stats for activity in public hospitals, public patients accounted for 83.2% of total discharges  and 80.1% of total in-patient bed days nationally in 2012.

This is an increase of 5.5% since 2011 and an average annual increase of 4.4% since 2008. The proportion of discharges relating to public patients has been rising in recent years, up from 78.8% in 2008 and 82.6% in 2011, according to the ESRI report.

The figures are likely to reflect the increasing number of patients giving up private health insurance and using the public system.

The number of public patients who are medical card holders made up 53.7% of total discharges in 2012, an increase of 5.6% since 2011 and an average annual increase of 4.8% since 2008.

The percentage of total discharges relating to medical card holders has increased from 50.1% in 2008 and 53.3% in 2011.

The total number of private discharges has trended downwards since 2008 and the average annual decrease was 2.8%.

The figures also show that hospital activity has been increasing steadily in recent years.

Over 1.54 million discharges were reported by hospitals last year compared to 1.47 million discharges in 2011, an increase of 4.8%. The average annual increase in discharges between 2008 and 2012 was 3%.

Voluntary hospitals recorded an acute in-patient average length of stay of 5.2 days for public discharges and 5.6 days for private discharges. For HSE hospitals, the acute in-patient average length of stay was four days for public discharges and 4.1 days for private discharges.