THE British Dental Association has accused the Department of Health of downplaying hospital waiting times.
In a statement, the BDA said that the My Waiting Times NI portal that was launched in May is underestimating the true picture, “with real figures as much as twice as those stated”.
The online system is intended for patients to check how long they are likely to wait for a specialist hospital appointment.
After initially providing average waiting times for a first outpatient hospital appointment, it has expanded for inpatient and daycase treatments.
Read more:
- NI hospital waiting lists rise by 185% in less than a decade – report
- Women lose legal challenge over hospital waiting lists
Analysis by the BDA has suggested that the choices made in designing the hub are “systematically underestimating waiting times,” with the same principles understood to apply across all branches of secondary care.
The BDA states that the quoted data is gathered using the average of ‘active waiters,’ using all those on the list at the date of a data refresh.
“This figure therefore does not provide any clarity on how long an average patient will wait to be seen, as all those just added to the lists bring down overall waiting times,” the statement reads.
“Based on this flawed methodology average routine referrals for the Hospital Orthodontic Department in the Northern Trust have been estimated at as little as 11 weeks. Audits undertaken by frontline staff suggest figures closer to 26 weeks for initial assessment.”
Darren Johnston, the BDA’s Northern Ireland Hospital Dental Services Forum Chair said: "It misrepresents what we are seeing in our clinics and is compounding the stress being experienced by both patients and clinicians.
“Sadly, these gross underestimates don’t just mislead patients, they also generate additional workload for staff.
“Our patients deserve to know how long they can expect to wait for care. As it stands, this website won’t tell them.”
Calling the portal system “unhelpful and misleading,” the BDA has called on the department to urgently review how data is published and reflect “the real waiting times facing patients across all specialties”.
The portal currently lacks sufficient context explaining that the figures provided do not represent the time expected to wait overall. The BDA believe this is not only unhelpful and misleading; it flies in the face of the stated purpose of the portal.
“A more viable approach would be to publish, and routinely update, completed case wait times.“
A Department of Health spokesperson responded: “The department is acutely aware of the consequences of long waiting times for patients and their families. We also recognise the additional frustration when people do not have easily accessible information on how long they will have to wait.
“The methodology used for my My Waiting time NI ensures a comparative analysis and consistent approach to reporting waiting time information to patients and healthcare professionals.”
