70,000 breaches in patient wait times
THE legal right of patients to be treated within 12 weeks was breached 71,611 times last year.
Just 72.7 per cent of patients in the last quarter of 2018 were seen within the guaranteed 12-week treatment time. It was a drop from 73.7 per cent the previous quarter and a fall of 8.1 per cent from the quarter ending December 2017. The wait for diagnostic tests – vital for the early detection of cancer – was only achieved in six weeks for 78.1 per cent.
Gordon Matheson, Cancer Research UK’s public affairs manager in Scotland, said too many patients were “still waiting too long for tests, some of which could detect cancer”.
Monica Lennon, Labour’s health spokeswoman, said: “The reason for this is down to an SNP Government in Edinburgh not giving our NHS staff the support they need and deserve.”
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman admitted the waiting time performance was “not good enough”.
But she added that the £850million Waiting Times Improvement Plan would increase the workforce, buy new equipment and create additional clinics at weekends.
She promised a new endoscopy action plan and said: “Our aim is that, by spring 2021, performance for outpatients waiting less than 12 weeks will be improved to 95 per cent, and for inpatients and day cases under the treatment time guarantee, it will be 100 per cent.”