NHS waiting times - stage of treatment
Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients quarter ending 30 June 2023

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) relates to the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. The latest statistics represent all patients covered by the national standards for these stages of treatment. Please note that individual patients are counted more than once if they are waiting to attend more than one scheduled hospital appointment or admission, so the official statistics shown here and in previous publications do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved. Consequently, figures for the number of ongoing waits of patients waiting for a new outpatient attendance and those waiting for treatment as either an inpatient or day case should not be added together to determine the proportion of the total population waiting for these types of care.

Main points

New outpatient national standard - 95% of new outpatients wait no longer than 12 weeks from referral to being seen.

• During the quarter ending June 2023, 305,633 new outpatient waits were completed when the patient involved was seen at their outpatient clinic. This represents a decrease of 14,397 (-4.5%) from the previous quarter. Compared to the same period in 2022 however, the number of attendances has increased by 2.3%.
• Of these waits, 202,865 (66.4%) were completed in 12 weeks or less, up from 201,412 (62.9%) in the previous quarter. The number of waits over 12 weeks decreased from 118,618 to 102,768 during the same period.
• At 30 June 2023, there were 518,491 patient waits that were still ongoing, a sharp increase (+7.2%; +34,924) compared to the end of the previous quarter. There has been an upward trend in this statistic since COVID-19 began to impact on planned care in March 2020. In the latest quarter, the rate of growth has accelerated, meaning the total waiting list size is now 15.6% higher than at the same date last year and has increased more than two-fold (+261,921) since 31 March 2020.
• In July 2022 the Scottish Government (SG) announced new targets to eradicate long waits. In respect of new outpatient appointments, the targets were to eradicate waits over two years (104 weeks) by the end of August 2022, those over eighteen months (78 weeks) by the end of December 2022 and those over a year (52 weeks) by the end of March 2023. Although these targets have yet to be achieved there have been reductions in the longest wait categories when comparing to the position at the end of June 2022. At the latest quarter end there were 1,123 (-1,629) waits that had been ongoing over 104 weeks, 5,251 (-3,591) over 78 weeks and 37,252 (+1,662) more than 52 weeks.

Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) – Following the decision to treat, all eligible patients should wait no longer than 12 weeks for treatment as an inpatient or day case.

• During quarter ending June 2023, 58,813 patient waits under this guarantee ended when the patient involved was admitted as an inpatient or day case for their intended treatment. This is an increase of 2.1% compared to quarter ending 31 March 2023 and is 17.9% higher than activity reported during the same quarter last year.
• Of these waits, 33,319 (56.7%) were completed in 12 weeks or less, 896 more than in the previous quarter. 25,494 waits were over 12 weeks, 286 more than in the previous quarter.
• At 30 June 2023, there were 149,255 waits for treatment that were still ongoing, an increase of 1,695 (+1.1%) compared to the end of the previous quarter. The rate of growth in the waiting list size has slowed in recent quarters but is 7.5% higher than at the same date last year and 92.4% higher than the average at the end of quarters in 2019 (+71,676), prior to when the COVID-19 pandemic began to impact on planned care services.
• New targets to eliminate long waits were announced by the SG in July 2022. In respect of waits for treatment as an inpatient or day case, the targets were to eradicate waits over two years (104 weeks) by the end of September 2022, those over eighteen months (78 weeks) by the end of September 2023 and those over a year (52 weeks) by the end of September 2024. In comparison to the position at the end of June 2022 the number of waits ongoing at the latest quarter end was as follows: there were 6,831 (-2,704) waits over 104 weeks, 17,201 (-615) over 78 weeks and 36,628 (+2,170) over 52 weeks. It should be noted that of these waits 1,587 had been ongoing for more than 3 years (156 weeks).

Background

Documents relating to waiting times, including the TTG are available via the waiting times section of the website (external website).

These statistics continue to be affected by COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. 

Further information

Open data from this publication are available from the Scottish Health and Social Care Open Data platform.

The next release of this publication will be 28 November 2023.

NHS Performs

A selection of information from this publication is included in NHS Performs (external website). NHS Performs is a website that brings together a range of information on how hospitals and NHS boards within NHSScotland are performing.