Over 864,000 Patients in Scotland on NHS Waiting List

A general view of staff on a NHS hospital ward on Jan. 18, 2023. Jeff Moore/PA

More than 864,000 patients in Scotland are on the waiting list for an appointment, tests, or hospital treatment, official data show.

According to figures from the end of June from Public Health Scotland (PHS), more than 9,000 people have been on waiting list to be seen for in-patient treatment or for an outpatient appointment.

The data on NHS waiting times, published on Tuesday, recorded an overall 155,558 patients waiting for hospital treatment as of June 30.

There were also 558,896 people waiting for an outpatient appointment. This is an increase of 3.6 percent compared to the end of the previous quarter.

Close to 150,000 people were waiting for diagnostic tests, including colonoscopies and cystoscopies. Endoscopy tests now account for 91 percent of waits over 52 weeks.

The report also showed that 115,937 patients were on the wait for a radiology test, such as CT and MRI. While there was an overall decrease in long waits for a radiology test, waits ongoing for longer than 26 weeks for an MRI increased by 12 percent.

Reactions

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr. Sandesh Gulhane said that “the backlog in Scotland’s NHS has spiralled out of control” under SNP leadership.

“More than 860,000 Scots are stuck on a waiting list for crucial treatment or diagnostic tests, with many being forced to endure unacceptable waits of over a year or more. This explains why increasing numbers are being forced to raid their life savings to go private and avoid intolerable waits,” Gulhane said.

The Scottish Conservatives have called on the government to “urgently tackle this growing emergency.”

Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said it’s “simply unacceptable” that a “record 864,366 Scots are stuck in pain on waiting lists.”

“The fact is that the SNP’s failure has put lives at risk, undermined the very existence of our NHS, and let down the people of Scotland. Warm words simply do not cut it any more. Scots demand action to support our NHS, help staff, and ensure patients get the treatment that they need when they need it,” Baillie said.

In turn, the Scottish Liberal Democrats said that the SNP has “mismanaged” the health system, adding that Scottish people “deserve much better than this.”

SNP Targets

In July 2022 the SNP government announced new targets to eradicate long waits. For new outpatient appointments, the plan was to eradicate waits over two years by the end of August 2022.

The deadline for waits over 18 months was the end of December 2022 and for waits over a year the end of March 2023.

According to PHS, these targets have yet to be achieved, while ongoing waits in all three measures have increased over the last year.

The SNP has previously said that under its leadership, “Scotland’s health service has undergone radical reform for the better.”

“We have the most GPs per head of the population, the best performing A&Es in the UK, and the only NHS workforce to avoid pay related industrial action. We spend more per person on frontline health than England’s NHS and have allocated £30 million to reduce waiting lists.

“We’ve abolished charges for prescriptions, dental checkups and hospital car parking, building on the NHS’s founding principle—that healthcare should be free at the point of need,” the SNP said.

A report by the Health Foundation revealed last week that Britain was among the poorest performing countries when it comes to hospital-based care.

Compared to data from 10 countries between 2013–2023, the UK accounted for the largest proportion of people waiting one year or more for an appointment.

On waits longer than four weeks to be seen by a specialist, Britain was reported to slip from being one of the better-performing nations to one of the worst.

PA Media contributed to this report.