Hospital activity update - March 2023

Important to note

• Date range: December 2021 to November 2022
• Published: March 2023
• Data: extracted on 9 March

The data below outline the number of patients seen and treated under various categories of care in a 12 month period and also the number of patients seen and treated in 2019, the last full year before the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020 and the cyberattack on the HSE in 2021 which caused significant disruption to health services.

Outpatient activity

Outpatient appointments are planned according to how urgently the patient needs to be seen and this is based on information from the doctor who makes the referral to the outpatient clinic.

There are two categories of outpatient appointments and these are:

• New
• Return

New includes all the patients who are coming to their first appointment in an outpatient clinic.

Some patients may need to return to the clinic for follow-up care, as part of a course of treatment or to support ongoing chronic care needs and these patients are counted as Return patients.

Day case activity

Day case attendances and treatment is provided across a range of areas. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy (Chemo / radiotherapy), dialysis, and GI scopes are separate categories of day case activity. Day cases can include patients who are coming for their first treatment or patients returning for follow on treatment after an initial episode of care.

Inpatient activity

Inpatient activity includes emergency, planned and maternity care. The majority of inpatient activity is as a result of emergency care.

Maternity includes all obstetric care.

Emergency care

New and return visits to an Emergency Department (ED) in relation to each episode of care are counted as New ED or Return ED.

Emergency care also includes visits to injury units .

Other emergency care includes patients who are seen on an emergency basis outside of an ED or Injury Unit. For example, at a Surgical Assessment Unit.

Important to note: Information is subject to change as more recent information becomes available.