HCS waiting lists are used to manage our referrals from medical professionals such as General Practitioners, dentists and others to specialists within HCS.
Detailed analysis of waiting lists are presented to the Health and Community Services (HCS) Advisory Board.
Health and Community Services Advisory Board
Referrals and triage
All our referrals are triaged by one of our clinicians to determine the priority of treatment for the patient's condition. Triage is the systematic sorting of patients according to the urgency of their need for care and is used to allocate appointments.
All our patients are assigned one of the following categories:
- urgent
- soon
- routine
Our patients are selected for outpatient appointments according to clinical priority. Patients of the same clinical priority are appointed in chronological order which means the patients who have been waiting longest will be seen first.
What happens after an outpatient appointment
Once a patient has attended their first outpatient appointment they're removed from the outpatient waiting list. If they need further outpatient treatment or review, they'll have follow-up appointments scheduled.
If the patient requires inpatient treatment (such as an operation or other inpatient procedures requiring a stay in hospital) they'll be added (listed) to the inpatient waiting list for the correct specialty. This listing will be triaged, prioritised and scheduled according to clinical need and chronological order.
A patient may need a Diagnostic test, such as an endoscopy or a radiology examination, and as such will be added to the relevant waiting list.
Waiting lists
Current waiting times for Outpatients and Elective lists. (We update these between the fifth and tenth working day of each month).
Secondary Scheduled Care Waiting Lists