There are 6,000 patients in Northern Ireland who have waited five years or more for an operation.
The Royal College of Surgeons has expressed concern over continued long waiting lists for surgery as 122,267 patients are on waiting lists in the inpatient and day case categories.
There are 66,302 patients who have been waiting a year or more for their surgeries, which is more than half of those on the waiting lists and 6,000 have been waiting five years or more.
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Although this is a slight improvement on the previous quarter when there were 68,565 people waiting.
162,047 people are waiting for a critical diagnostic scan, which is 1.2% (1,891) less than at September 2022 (163,938), but nearly 10% more than at December 2021.
There are also nearly 20,000 patients waiting to be seen at day case procedure centre for varicose or cataract surgery or for an appointment with a consultant.
There was also an increase in the numbers of patients waiting of an outpatient appointment, increasing by 0.4% from 376,833 to 378,411.
Responding to the figures, Mark Taylor, Director in NI for the Royal College of Surgeons, said: “Although there has been some progress in some areas of the health service, demand for hospital services continues to outstrip capacity.
"For example, we know there are patients facing over five years for a routine operation to fix their hips. Surgeons are deeply concerned about these sorts of waits as they will inevitable involve long-term deterioration associated with untreated major disease.
“Everyone is working tremendously hard to address mammoth waiting lists and that’s because staff care and they know at the heart of these figures, are real people who are suffering.
“We know we need to create more operating capacity for surgeons and teams across Northern Ireland. Surgical hubs and dedicated elective sites are helping to create a landscape in our health service where we are all sharing resources and creating more chances to get life-saving and life-changing surgery done.
“Staff have borne the brunt of massive pressures and change over the last few years and morale is extremely low across our surgical, medical and nursing teams.
"To help make significant inroads into the waiting lists long term, we need proper workforce planning, a sustained political arrangement at Stormont and a long-term protected budget that prioritises waiting lists and ring fences the finances and teams required for us to banish long waiting lists for good."
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