The Northern Ireland Department of Health has announced an initiative to centralise and improve information available to patients, with the launch of My Waiting Times NI.
The website will provide patients with the average waiting times for a first outpatient hospital appointment, across health and social care trusts and the different clinical specialties in each.
It will be updated on a monthly basis and “will be expanded over time to also provide the latest waiting time information for procedures, treatment and diagnostics”, the Northern Ireland Department of Health said.
The department highlighted “Northern Ireland’s waiting lists are a result of years of sustained pressure with demand for care and treatment outstripping hospital capacity”. Adding that, “additional funding has been made available in recent years to support a range of waiting list initiatives and we were beginning to see some stabilisation of the situation. However, the current budget deficit means that this additional investment will be at a lower level this year. Regrettably, this will have an impact on waiting times.”
In March, Lincolnshire ICB announced the launch of an app to provide citizens across the region with live urgent and emergency care services waiting times and queue numbers.
In January, HTN asked our community through a poll: Do your local healthcare providers share live waiting time data for A&E and urgent care via a patient facing app or website? Here we found the majority – 55 percent – said no, their healthcare providers do not provide that live data, 26 percent were unsure and 18 percent said yes.
Last year in England, the My Planned Care platform launched to provide patients with the latest waiting times for hospital appointments, treatments and procedures.
