Chamber and committees

NHS Boards have exceeded the commitment to deliver 64,000 appointments and procedures in 2024-25, funded through our additional investment of £30 million to drive action to address the longest waits.

To the end of January 2025, Boards are reporting delivery of 75,500 appointments and procedures, as follows:

• Over 9,800 of 12,000 new outpatient appointments;
• almost 9,200 of 12,000 surgeries delivered;
• and almost 56,500 diagnostic procedures delivered, exceeding the original plan to deliver 40,000 by 41%.

Funding was targeted in specialties including Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Urology, Diagnostics and Cancer. Since April 2024, Scottish Government has been closely monitoring progress and impact and will continue to do so until the end of March 2025.

Across Scotland, the latest published data in the PHS Stage of Treatment Statistics show that, between April 2024 and September 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, there has been an 8.3% increase in activity for inpatient/daycase procedures and 2.5% increase for new outpatients appointments. While the activity through the additional investment cannot be directly attributed to the increased activity, we are confident that has supported increased throughput.

The targeted funding has also helped reduce the total national diagnostics waiting list size. Between April 2024 and September 2024 imaging list size reduced by 7.5% and scopes by 7.3%.

At Board level, we have seen significant percentage reductions in waiting times across a number of specialities where funding has been targeted, as set out in the following table: