NHS Scotland crisis: More patients facing 18 month-waits in Scotland than in England, figures show, despite massive population difference

While the Scottish Government has promised action to tackle the longest waits in the NHS, statistics from Public Health Scotland showed at the end of December last year that 17,761 Scots had been waiting 18 months or more for either in-patient or day case treatment.

That includes 7,179 patients who have been waiting at least two years, with 1,446 on the list for three years or more.

Despite England having ten times the population of Scotland, England had just 13,164 patients who had been waiting 18 months or more for elective care – with the total in Scotland 35 per cent higher than south of the border.

NHS England data also showed in December there were 282 patients who had been waiting more than two years for elective care, with the 7,170 total in Scotland 25 times higher than this.

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “That so many more Scots are waiting over three years for treatment than compared to England is shocking and the need for action could not be greater.”

Ms Baillie, also the Scottish Labour deputy leader, said health secretary Neil Gray had “inherited an unholy mess from his predecessors”, including First Minister Humza Yousaf, who served as health secretary before succeeding Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader.

“When it comes to the NHS, the SNP’s record is a blizzard of rhetoric to hide a litany of deadly failures,” Ms Baillie said. “We can’t go on like this.

“Neil Gray must wake up to this ticking time bomb and act before more lives are put on the line.”

When he was health secretary, Mr Yousaf announced a series of targets to tackle the longest waits in the NHS. The Government promised that by the end of September 2022, no-one would be waiting two years or more for in-patient or day case treatment.

Ministers also hoped that by September 2023 waits of 18 months or more would have been ended – with Labour saying the Government had failed on both these targets.

The stats come after Scotland’s top medics said they were now questioning whether all treatments on NHS Scotland should be available and free of charge at the point of access, following a damning report from public spending watchdogs.

An Audit Scotland report, which called for “significant changes” to the way the Scottish Government funds NHS Scotland, was described as “staggeringly bleak” by medical professionals, who said the report “paints a picture of a health service in crisis, without a plan to address it”.

Meanwhile, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) said it is now “legitimate to ask whether we can afford to provide every treatment available, free of charge and at the point of access”.

However, the Scottish Government’s health secretary, Neil Gray, said: “The fundamentals of Scotland’s NHS will not change; we remain committed to free access to healthcare.”

The comments came as Audit Scotland said the Scottish Government was “unlikely” to meet commitments made in the 2023-24 Programme for Government to reduce both waiting lists and waiting times.

Overall, the public spending watchdog found that while “some progress has been made in reducing some of the longest waits, key targets for eradicating long waits have been missed”.

Dr Iain Kennedy, Chair of BMA Scotland said: “It is pretty clear both from Audit Scotland’s recent report and these figures that the Scottish Government’s recovery plan – which we did warn at the time was inadequate - has failed to address even the longest waits.

“Our NHS simply cannot meet demand, hence we are in the shocking position of discussing two- and three-year waits for patients. No one can imagine this is good enough, or is simply because of Covid.

“The warning lights about the perilous position of our NHS have been flashing far too long. These waits aren’t just statistics, they are people in pain. People whose conditions will undoubtably worsen as they wait for treatment and who - through absolutely no fault of their own, or of those treating them – will place more pressure on the NHS as they seek more treatment while they wait.

"It’s doctors and their colleagues who end up apologising for this dire situation and it simply cannot go on. We need a properly resourced, properly staffed NHS that delivers effectively for the people of Scotland for generations to come.

"And to reach that point we must urgently start an honest, open national conversation on the future of the NHS in Scotland to finally build consensus on how we tackle these problems in the long term.”

The Scottish Government has been contacted for comment.