500 ops are cancelled in one month

MORE than 500 patients had planned hospital operations cancelled in only one month due to a lack of beds, staff or equipment.

In November, 31,747 operations were scheduled by NHS Scotland but 3,064 (9.7 per cent) of them were cancelled either by the patient or the hospital, official figures show.

A total of 540 (1.7 per cent) were cancelled by t he hospital f or ‘capacity or non-clinical reasons’, a slight decrease from 549 in the previous month.

Reasons can include the unavailability of beds, staff and equipment as well as employee illness and theatre sessions overrunning.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘We are always working with health boards to make sure we manage capacity, to keep cancellations to a minimum.

‘However, on occasion, planned operations may need to be rescheduled and these decisions are never taken lightly. Health boards work to ensure any postponed procedures will be rescheduled at the earliest opportunity.

‘We have made it clear to boards that patients with the greatest clinical need, such as cancer patients, should not have their operations cancelled.’

Mrs Robison said NHS staff numbers are at a record high and highlighted plans to invest £200million in six new treatment centres.

But Scottish Lib Dem health spokesman Jim Hume said the cancellations figure was ‘still far too high’. He added: ‘ Across Scotland, there were almost 20 operations cancelled per day in November for nonclinical reasons. Patients should not be forced to wait longer for operations as they should receive the care they need as quickly as possible.’

Scottish Labour public services spokesman Dr Richard Simpson said: ‘The number of operations cancelled has risen month on month throughout the autumn of 2015.

‘That follows on from analysis which suggests 15 operations were cancelled every single day in 2015 due to a lack of resources.

‘The SNP Government needs to investigate why this is happening.’

‘Patients should not have to wait’