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.

In 2024-25, Boards were required to provide regular management information to the Scottish Government on activity being delivered as a result of additional funding provided. Boards have reported delivery of 105,500 appointments and procedures, as follows:

Over 15,800 new outpatient appointments;

almost 10,700 surgeries; and

almost 79,000 diagnostic procedures delivered.

This total is around 30,000 more than reported to the end of January in the answer to question S6W-35115 on 20 February 2025.

Funding was targeted in specialties including Diagnostics, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Urology, and Cancer. Since April 2024, Scottish Government has been closely monitoring progress and impact. The volume of diagnostic procedures is almost double those originally planned for.

Across Scotland, the latest published data in the PHS Stage of Treatment Statistics show that, between October 2024 and December 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, there has been an 2.0% increase in activity for inpatient/daycase procedures and 1.6% increase for new outpatients appointments. Additionally, in relation to diagnostics, at the end of December 2024, the diagnostic waiting list had reduced by over 18,000 compared to end of April 2024. Since December 2022 the diagnostic waiting list has reduced by over 14,870. While changes to overall activity and waiting times cannot be solely attributed to the £30 million additional investment, we are confident that it has supported increased throughput.

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