A new “productivity dashboard” is designed to help hold hospitals to account for the increased investment they have received in recent years, the Minister for Health has said.
Health sector workers and members of the public will be able to access performance data on the Department of Health dashboard under headings such as general activity levels, waiting lists and inpatient stay duration.
The tool, which provides regional and hospital by hospital breakdowns, is intended to aid greater transparency.
“For too long hospitals have had the opportunity to regard themselves as independent republics,” Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said on Thursday.
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However, the Minister for Health said, they are “very much part of a state system that is funded by the State”, so it is “reasonable and appropriate” to shine this light on their activity.
Dashboard figures suggest just one major facility in the country, Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin, increased its productivity between 2019 and 2024 at a greater rate than its staff expanded.
During that time, however, total expenditure on its work increased at more than twice the rate of that productivity increase.
University Hospital Limerick had the greatest recorded increase in productivity during that five-year period, the data showed, at 36 per cent, although the rise in staff numbers and investment outstripped that figure. The Limerick hospital still had long trolley waiting times and other issues last year.
The data lists St James’s Hospital in Dublin as having a 3 per cent growth in productivity despite increases in staff numbers and expenditure of almost 30 per cent and more than 40 per cent respectively. The hospital has been approached for comment.
Elsewhere, there is detail on waiting lists. Dublin’s Mater hospital is shown to have halved waiting times for appointments in rheumatology, geriatric medicine and vascular surgery between May 2022 and last month. However, the wait for infectious diseases, dermatology and psychiatry appointments rose.
Ms Carroll MacNeill said the health budget has grown from 19 per cent of the total government spending to 23 per cent.
“It cannot be the case that we continue to invest without getting the efficiency for it. The IMF [International Monetary Fund] very clearly has us running at about 15 per cent less efficiency than we should be,” she said.
Asked about figures showing a significant decline, between 2016 and 2020, and a stagnation since, in the average number of patient consultations, the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) said the issue was more complex than the numbers suggested.
“This type of blanket approach of comparing hospital sites is of little value in terms of understanding what is happening at individual hospital level,” it said.
“There are multiple factors that need to be examined such as consultant access to clinics, levels of multidisciplinary team supports across all sites, patient treatment complexity, access to diagnostics, beds and theatres and IT systems.
“The IMO has repeatedly called for measures that will enable consultants to see and treat patients in a timely manner.”
