John Swinney laid out his plan to improve Scotland’s NHS in a speech in Edinburgh on Monday.
The First Minister admitted delays have been too long and Scots are not getting “the right care in the right place at the right time”. From A&E to dentistry, here are five ways Scotland’s health service is struggling.
One in six Scots on waiting lists
During First Minister’s Questions, opposition leaders often raise the figure that almost one in six Scots are on NHS waiting lists. The number is over 800,000, with tens of thousands of Scots waiting more than a year for tests or treatment.
Labour has said this is forcing people to go private. The total number of private hospital admissions in Scotland last year amounted to 21,000 – with a quarter of all hip and knee arthroplasty operations performed last year were done privately.
John Swinney has acknowledged this is a problem and vowed to bring down the waiting lists by the ends of the year.
A&E waits
Scotland’s accident and emergency departments have been at the frontline of the crisis in the NHS. Official figures found 1,642 Scots waited more than 12 hours to be seen at an A&E ward in the week ending December 29.
The Scottish Government has a target for 95 per cent of patients to be seen within four hours. But this target has not been met since 2017. Only 58.7 per cent were seen within that time in the week ending January 5.
Cancer waiting times
The SNP Government continues to miss its target on cancer waiting times. Around 1,200 patients on an urgent referral for a suspicion of cancer did not start treatment within 62 days, quarterly figures from December showed.
The Scottish Government target is for 95 per cent of patients to begin treatment in that timeframe. Between July and September, that figure dropped to just 28 per cent. Just one health board across Scotland hit the target – NHS Lanarkshire – while 13 others missed it.
Dentistry
The problems in the NHS have not been restricted to Scotland’s hospitals. In October, six council areas had no practices able tot take on new adult patients within three months.
At the same time, many Scots have been facing huge waits to get teeth extracted – with several health boards having average waits of over a year. All of this has resulted in at least 36,818 Scots opting to leave NHS dentists and pay for private dental care since 2019.
Buildings
It was revealed last month the maintenance backlog facing Scotland’s NHS had hit a record of £1.3 billion. This was a £200m increase on the 2022 figures reported last year.
It comes after all new NHS building projects in Scotland were put on hold in February. At least a dozen schemes across the country were delayed or paused for up to two years due to budget constraints. But a few were later given funding.
The health service has also spent £4.3m on pest control in the last five years, which Labour has blamed on the maintenance backlog.
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