Only a quarter of outpatients referred to a consultant have received an appointment - with some waiting times appearing to top 2,500 days.

Health Minister David Ashford revealed the figures on the same day that he pledged to target an 18-week time limit on health service referrals.

Mr Ashford was called upon to give a breakdown of all consultant waiting lists in the House of Keys

As of October 17, 10,287 patients had been referred for an outpatient appointment and just 2,706 - 26% - had been given their appointment.

’The outpatient waiting list report, in addition to providing the numbers of patients waiting on each consultant list, also describes the respective average waiting time and the longest wait in days,’ he said.

’It is clear that a number of these waiting times are unacceptably long.’

More than 650 outpatients are waiting for cardiology treatment, with a maximum wait of 2,552 days.

A general surgery consultant has a maximum waiting time reported as 3,018 days, although the average for that consultant is 101 days.

For clinical oncology outpatients, the average wait for different consultants ranges from 102 days to 1,203 days. The maximum wait in one instance is listed as 1,770 days.

Mr Ashford said some of the figures could be distorted due to reporting errors and a ’full validation’ of the waiting list report was awaited.

In terms of inpatients, there are currently 490 waiting for surgery. Of these 289 - 59% - are waiting for orthopaedic surgery. The maximum number of days waited was 904, which came under the heading of general medicine in the report.

The day case waiting list shows 2,533 patients waiting for admission for either surgical or diagnostic intervention. Of these, 22% require an ophthalmology procedure (cataract) and 42.5% are requiring a diagnostic endoscopy procedure.

In a limited number of instances on the day case list, the figures indicate that a day patient has had to wait more than 1,000 days for an appointment

One general medicine consultant has 661 outpatients on his list, with a maximum waiting time of 1,434 days.

Across the colorectal surgery consultants, more than 400 patients are on the list with the maximum waiting time reaching 1,462.

The figures were given in response to a written House of Keys question tabled by Julie Edge (Onchan).

At the same sitting, Mr Ashford was asked an oral question by Lawrie Hooper (LibVan, Ramsey), who wanted to know whether the minister would consider adopting the UK’s 18-week referral to treatment target within the next five years.

Mr Ashford said: ’I can confirm that the intention of the Department of Health and Social Care is to achieve delivery of the 18-week referral to treatment standard within the next five years and in so doing bring the Isle of Man in line with the NHS England 18-week RTR performance standard that was first introduced in England in 2008.

’I can also confirm that the director of hospitals and his team are currently undertaking an assessment of the increase in activity performance and associated capacity that will be required to deliver the Referral to Treatment standard within the five-year timeframe.’

He added that, as important as bringing down waiting lists, was ensuring the quality of the treatment patients received.

In a response to a Freedom of Information request, the DHSC revealed there is a five month waiting time for routine MRI scans.

The waiting time for an urgent referral is four to six weeks.

Mr Ashford said there has been a dramatic increase in demand for routine scans since the island first started offering MRIs in 2003.