NHS waiting times - stage of treatment
Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients quarter ending 31 December 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 December 2023, 310,870 new outpatient waits were completed when the patient involved was seen at their outpatient clinic. This represents an increase of 1,799 (+0.6%) attendances from the previous quarter and is 0.4% higher than the same quarter of the previous year. It should be noted that NHS Lothian are underreporting new outpatient attendances this quarter due to local technical issues so the 310,870 completed waits reported nationally is an undercount and will possibly be revised upwards in future statistical releases.
• Of these waits, 192,359 (61.9%) were completed in 12 weeks or less, down from 195,857 (63.4%) in the previous quarter. The number of waits over 12 weeks increased from 113,214 to 118,511 during the same period.
• At 31 December 2023, there were 525,180 patient waits that were still ongoing, a decrease of 1% (-5,298) compared to the end of the previous quarter. This marks the first reported quarterly decrease in ongoing waits in two years. However, the total waiting list size is 10.3% higher than at the end of 2022 and has increased more than two-fold (+268,755) since 31 March 2020, after the onset of the pandemic.
• 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 18 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 some reductions in long waits when comparing to the position at the end of June 2022. Specifically, there were 953 (-1,821) waits that had been ongoing over 104 weeks at 31 December 2023 and 7,475 (-1,400) over 78 weeks, although both have increased over the latest quarter. 41,758 waits over 52 weeks represents an increase of 6,135 (+17.2%) since the targets were announced.

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 December 2023, 61,992 patient waits under this guarantee ended when the patient involved was admitted as an inpatient or day case for their intended treatment. This represents an increase of 2,497 (+4.2%) admissions from the previous quarter and is 10% higher than the same quarter of the previous year. It should be noted that the reported rise in completed waits this quarter is largely due to the inclusion of ophthalmology waits at GJUNH for the first time. Excluding this specialty across NHSScotland to draw comparisons over time, completed waits increased by 0.8% from last quarter and 6.6% from the same period of the previous year.
• Of these waits, 35,735 (57.6%) were completed in 12 weeks or less, an increase from 33,355 (56.1%) in the previous quarter. There were 26,257 waits over 12 weeks, 117 more than in the previous quarter.
• At 31 December 2023 there were 155,311 waits for treatment that were still ongoing, an increase of 1.3% (+2,056) compared to the end of the previous quarter. Despite the recent inclusion of ophthalmology waits at GJUNH, the rate of growth in the waiting list size has slowed in recent quarters. However, the number of ongoing waits is 7.9% higher than at the same date of the previous year and has more than doubled than the average at the end of quarters in 2019 (+77,725), 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. Those targets due to be delivered by now have yet to be achieved but some improvement has been made. In comparison to the position at the end of June 2022 there were 7,170 (-2,360) waits that had been ongoing over 104 weeks at 31 December 2023, whilst 17,761 waits over 78 weeks represents a minor reduction of 46. It should be noted that of these long waits, 1,446 relate to patients being on the waiting list for more than three years. In relation to the final target, there are 37,613 waits over 52 weeks, up 3,193 since the announcement and representing 24.2% of the overall list size.

Background

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

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

Further information

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

The next release of this publication will be 28 May 2024.

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.