Cancelled planned operations
Month Ending 28 February 2025

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides a monthly update on the number of operations in NHSScotland that were cancelled the day before or on the day of treatment. Cancellation reasons are grouped into cancelled by the hospital for clinical reasons, cancelled by the patient, cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, cancelled for other reasons and cancelled for unknown reason.

Main points

• During February 2025, there were 23,925 operations planned to take place across NHSScotland. This is similar to the number planned a year previously in February 2024 (23,994). Overall, the number of planned operations has been steadily increasing since the COVID-19 pandemic impacted service provision.
• In the 12 months from March 2024 to February 2025, there was a 1.4% increase (+4,009) in the number of planned operations compared to the previous 12 months. However, this remains 14.7% lower (-49,188) than those planned to take place in the 12 months from March 2019 to February 2020, just prior to when the pandemic began to severely impact service provision. While a year-on-year increase is still being observed, the rate of growth has slowed.
• During the latest month, 8.1% (1,928) of planned operations were cancelled the day before or on the day the patient was due to be treated in NHSScotland. This is lower than the rate reported during February 2024 (8.7%; 2,086) and February 2019 (8.9%; 2,435). Across NHS boards, the percentage of cancelled planned operations ranged from 5.5% to 16.1% in this month.
• Of all planned operations during February 2025 in NHSScotland, 707 (3%) were cancelled by the hospital for clinical reasons, 731 (3.1%) were cancelled by the patient, 420 (1.8%) were cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, and 70 (0.3%) were cancelled for other reasons.

A trend chart showing NHSScotland level data for total planned operations and percentage of cancelled planned operations, by reason, from January 2020 up to February 2025. Total number of planned operations has been steadily increasing since the start of COVID-19 emergency measures in March 2020. Although they have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. Over the past 12 months, the percentage of cancelled planned operations due to clinical reasons has stayed consistent at approximately 3%. The same was true for the most recent percentages of cancelled planned operations by patients (3.1%) and due to non-clinical/capacity reason (1.8%), which both saw increases after consistent trends with a spike in December 2022 and small increases in January 2024. The percentage of cancelled planned operations due to other reasons has remained consistently low since May 2020 and is currently 0.3%. A new cancellation reason of "unknown" has been added because of the NHS Orkney data quality issues between April 2022 and May 2024 (ranging between 0.1% and 0.3%).

Close

NHSScotland total planned operations and percentage of cancelled planned operations by reason to February 2025

Please note that fluctuation in the trend in the monthly number of planned operations will be caused partly by variation in the number of working days per month i.e. weekdays excluding public holidays, as theatre capacity tends to be lower at weekends and on public holidays.

Background

These statistics are released monthly. Data for this publication are submitted from NHS board theatre systems. Further information on the reasons for cancellation can be found on the Cancelled Planned Operations section of our website.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 6 May 2025.

PHS is currently undertaking a review of the statistical publications we produce; all planned care waiting times outputs are being reviewed and this may lead to a change in the content, layout and frequency of future publications. Any substantial changes will be announced ahead of implementation. For more information, please contact us at phs.waitingtimes@phs.scot.