Health Minister James Reilly has ordered hospitals to redouble their efforts to keep waiting lists down and has set them tougher targets for reducing the number of long-waiting patients.

He says some hospitals should be able to reduce lists by changing how they work and should not have to rely on extra funding to ensure that waiting list targets are met.

In a recent letter to HSE Director General Tony O'Brien, Minister Reilly said the current focus on hospitals achieving a specific waiting list target, eg. having no patient longer than eight months for an operation by end of year, was not properly incentivising some hospitals to manage their waiting lists all year round.

The Minister noted that last year, patients were enduring long waiting lists in the middle of the year and an intervention fund was required to reduce the waiting lists by the end of the year.

"While this was necessary to ensure that patients do not experience excessive delays while waiting for treatments, I am concerned that the hospitals that did not follow best practice in waiting list management had their problems resolved for them by the intervention fund."

Minister Reilly said he was eager that, in future, the waiting list targets are met by reforming how hospitals operate and not by providing additional funding for hospitals that are failing to follow best practice.

He said the HSE Special Delivery Unit should develop best practice guidelines for waiting list management and should ensure that they are implemented in each hospital.

Dr Reilly said in future, he wanted to see hospitals meeting the eight month maximum wait target for procedures in the first half of this year and maintain waiting lists at this level through the second half of the year.

He said in 2015, hospitals will have to meet a six month target for inpatient procedures in the first half of the year and maintain waiting lists at this level through the second half of the year.

On outpatient lists, the Minister has asked hospitals to meet the current maximum one year wait target in the first half of this year and maintain this level for the remainder of the year.

In 2015, this target must be reduced to nine months, the Minister said.

He added that as there were significant capacity issues in relation to orthopaedics and ENT treatment, these specialties would not have to meet the one-year target by the end of this year.

The Minister, in his letter, acknowledged that strong progress had been made in tackling waiting lists over the past two years, with the number of patients waiting longer than eight months for inpatient or day case treatment dropping by 99% in that period.

"This is a remarkable achievement given the reduction in budget and staff numbers the health service has faced", Dr Reilly said.

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