Cancer wait targets are missed again
Labour MSP demands urgent action
The Scottish Government has been urged to tackle the country’s “cancer care crisis” after performance against key waiting times standards fell again.
Figures show less than three-quarters of patients start treatment within 62 days of first being referred for help when cancer is suspected.
Now opposition MSPs have demanded action from the SNP.
Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “Scotland is in the grips of a cancer care crisis with targets being missed again and again.
“Thousands of Scots are waiting far too long to get the cancer care that they desperately need while SNP government targets are broken across the country.”
The Scottish Government has set the target of 95 per cent of patients starting treatment within 62 days of first being referred but this has not been met since the final three months of 2012.
The figures, covering the final quarter of 2023, show of the 4457 people referred, 71.1 per cent of patients started treatment within the target time. That was down from 71.9 per cent in the previous quarter, Public Health Scotland said, and below the 83.7 per cent who started treatment within the target time in the last three months of 2019, prior to the Covid pandemic.
In October to December 2023, only NHS Orkney met the 62-day standard, with 100 per cent of patients starting cancer treatment within the timescale.
In NHS Shetland, only half of patients started treatment within two months of first being referred, while in NHS Grampian the figure was 54.4 per cent.
A second target that 95 per cent of cancer patients should start any treatment within 31 days of a decision being made to treat them was “narrowly missed”, Public Health Scotland said.
This target was achieved for 94.1 per cent of the 6829 eligible patients during October to December. That was down from 94.9 per cent the previous quarter, and compares with 96.5 per cent in the final quarter of 2019.
Health Minister Neil Gray said while the NHS “remains under pressure”, more patients are being treated than before the pandemic.