• Khalid Munir, Linda Tighe, and Emma Keane.
• Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, Ireland. khalidmunir@rcsi.ie.
• Ir J Med Sci. 2024 Jun 1; 193 (3): 146714701467-1470.

BackgroundOutpatient waiting list figures have substantially increased over the last 3 years due to the effects of a global pandemic and cyber-hacking crisis. Multidisciplinary initiatives are essential to try to reduce the burden on overwhelmed medical and surgical specialties.ObjectiveThe purpose of the study is as follows: (1) to demonstrate the potential for a problem-specific clinic to help ease the burden on an overwhelmed specialty and identify high-risk patients who may benefit from earlier surgical intervention and (2) to provide supervised clinical training to our clinical nurse specialist.MethodsA retrospective audit of outpatient referrals awaiting an appointment was conducted, and a new outpatient clinic was formed for patients referred with tonsil issues with or without additional complaints.ResultsTwo hundred ninety-five patients with an average waiting time of 14.4 months were offered an outpatient appointment over 5 months. Sixty-four percent (n = 189) attended their appointments, and 59.3% (n = 112) of these were listed for surgery. One hundred fifty-eight patients were able to be discharged back to the care of their general practitioners.Discussion/ConclusionThis outpatient clinic identified a large number of patients waiting significant periods of time for an outpatient appointment and allowed a definitive clinical decision to be made with most patients being either discharged or listed for surgery. Initiatives such as this offer the possibility of reducing the burden of long waiting times on individual institutions.© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland.

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