Allied health professionals – musculoskeletal waiting times in NHSScotland
Quarter ending 31 December 2023

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an update on how long patients wait for a first outpatient appointment at Allied Health Professional (AHP) led Musculoskeletal (MSK) services. The Scottish Government has determined that at least 90% of patients should wait no longer than four weeks to be seen from receipt of referral.

The statistics reported in this release continue to be severely constrained by the availability of quality assured data from several NHS Boards (NHS Borders, NHS Fife, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lothian and NHS Western Isles), which means that PHS can only publish a comprehensive overview of data at a Scotland level between October 2020 and December 2023.

Progress has been made to address the data quality issues affecting Orthotics data for NHS Lothian and Occupational Therapy data for NHS Tayside and as a result, some previously published data have changed. PHS is working collaboratively with each NHS Board to resolve the remaining data quality issues and revised data will be published in future releases. Further detail is available in the Data Quality document.

Main points

For the services covered by available data:

• The number of patients seen at AHP MSK services shows a general upward trend in each of the last 3 years. Activity falls in December each year and a major contributing factor to this is likely to be the regular drop in activity during the last week of December due to the festive period. During 2021, the monthly average number of patients seen was 16,613, rising to 19,082 in 2022 and 21,491 in 2023.
• The proportion of patients seen within the target of four weeks of referral has been decreasing over the last 3 years, from 55.9% in 2021 to 47.7% in 2022 to 46.8% in 2023. The proportion in the current quarter (ending 31 December 2023) is 46.8%, the same as the overall figure for 2023.
• The number of referrals also shows a general upward trend over the last 3 years (with the same drop off in December each year). During 2021, the monthly average number of referrals was 25,439, rising to 27,909 in 2022 and 30,250 in 2023.
• The number of patients waiting has increased in each of the last 3 years since the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the reporting period on 31 December 2023, there were 71,455 patients waiting to be seen, an increase of 8.0% from a year ago (66,148 patients) and of 24.5% from 31 December 2021 (57,378 patients).

This monthly line chart shows: • The number of referrals (October 2020 to December 2023). • The number of patients seen (October 2020 to December 2023). • The number of patients removed including those patients seen (October 2020 to December 2023). • The number of patients waiting (October 2020 to December 2023). The number of referrals varied from its highest at 33805 in August 2023, as low as 15977 in January 2021 and currently at 23766 at December 2023. The number of patients seen varied from its highest at 23506 in November 2022, as low as 12317 in January 2021 and currently at 17972 at December 2023. The number of patients waiting varied from its highest at 76304 in September 2023, as low as 29942 in January 2021 and 71455 as at December 2023.

Close

Waiting list changes - patients removed, seen, referred and waiting by month October 2020 to December 2023

Background

The AHP MSK data collection covers Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Chiropody/Podiatry and Orthotics services. It also covered the NHS24 Musculoskeletal Advice and Triage Service (MATS) service from May 2017 until March 2020. Data are sourced from the national waiting times warehouse with aggregate data submitted by NHS Boards as required. Data gaps and data from several sources should be taken into consideration when interpreting the statistics.

The waiting time used for this target is an adjusted waiting time, with adjustments made up to 4 weeks based on the NHSScotland Waiting Times Guidance.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 18 June 2024.