Second Validation Project to Tackle Outpatient Waiting List Underway at Galway University Hospitals

The outpatient waiting list is a major challenge for the Galway and Roscommon University Hospital Group. The Department of Health’s Special Delivery Unit (SDU) has set a target that by November 2013 no patient should wait longer than 12 months for an outpatient clinic appointment and this is a primary focus of the Group in 2013.
 
Tony Canavan, Chief Operating Officer for the Group described the progress being made. He said, “Last November we started validating the waiting list by contacting over 23,000 patients from Galway, Roscommon and surrounding areas to check that they still need an appointment. These were patients who had been waiting over 12 months at that time. We wrote to all of the patients asking them to telephone us to confirm if they still required an appointment. If after two weeks we had no response, we sent a second letter. If there was still no response after a further two weeks we contacted the patient’s GP.
 
“We are now embarking on a second validation project which involves contacting a further 18,000 patients – these are patients who were added to the waiting list in 2012.
 
“We will be writing to all these patients in the next few days. It is really important that people take time to read these letters and take action by calling us. The letter will include a telephone number for outpatient services where we have a team of staff dedicated to this validation project and ready to take calls.
 
“If you receive a letter and call us, we will update your contact details if necessary and find out if you still need an appointment. At times the outpatient services staff will be very busy answering calls and we ask you to bear with us and we will get to all calls as quickly as possible.
 
“We are working hard to provide appointments on dates that suit patients which in turn will mean that we should have fewer “no shows” which put an unnecessary burden on the hospital. In 2012 we had 286,966 attendances at our outpatient clinics across the Group and we had approximately 23,000 instances where patients did not attend their appointment or notify us in advance. We hope that with improved communication we will be able to reduce this number significantly and provide improved access to our outpatient clinics.”