Number of outpatients seen per consultant has fallen by nearly 30% since 2016

Consultant Medical Oncologist at University Hospital Galway commented on this article to Newstalk FM: https://irishtimes.com/health/2024/07/12/number-of-out-patients-seen-per-consultant-has-fallen-by-nearly-30-per-cent-since-2016/

I am surprised that it is only a 30% reduction. In medical oncology in Ireland, in general, there has never been a ‘waiting list’ to access a consultant opinion, public or private. Since I started my training, every new referral was pretty much automatically booked to the next OPD clinic, i.e. within a week of receiving the referral. That is still the case. 15 years ago, this meant that routinely, a consultant and 2-3 NCHDs would have a 3 hour clinic with 60-70 patients booked in. A patient with a “3pm appointment” would still be waiting to be seen at 8pm. There was little time to discuss the proposed cancer treatment and potential side-effects. The system was clearly understaffed for the volume of patients.

I have said before that one of the positive achievements over the past 10 years is the increase in consultant numbers. This has allowed more meaningful outpatient clinic interactions.

However: If the HSE hires a new consultant with the aim of improving patient care in this way, it should obviously be the case that secretarial support, clinical nurse specialist support, office space, outpatient space, dayward space supported by qualified staff nurses, HSCP support, (theatre space for surgeons), diagnostic and interventional radiology access, etc is also required, to enable improved patient care. In other areas of medicine or surgery, access to a consultant opinion might well be a constraint, in Oncology, the bottleneck is access to the service.