NHS waiting times broken 2212 times
A flagship waiting time rule was broken 2112 times in the first three months of 2018 in NHS Lothian.
In 2012, the SNP introduced the Treatment Time Guarantee, which gave patients a legal right to treatment within 12-weeks for conditions such as knee and eye operations.
The guideline has been broken 134,804 times across Scotland since it was introduced.
The new figures also show that since its introduction the law has been broken 27,400 times in NHS Lothian.
Labour MSP Neil Findlay branded the performance unacceptable.
He said: “In 2012 the SNP made a promise to the people of Scotland that they would have a legal right to treatment within 12 weeks.
“That law was broken over 27,000 times in Lothian.
“Patients locally deserve transparency when it comes to their treatment.
“Long and unknown waits can have a negative impact on a person’s work, family life, mental and physical wellbeing.”
Jacquie Campbell, chief officer of Acute Services, NHS Lothian, said sorry to patients who found themselves waiting longer than they should have.
She said: “We are committed to providing swift, effective patientcentred care and I would like to apologise to any patient who is waiting longer than expected for their treatment.
“Monitoring and measuring waiting times help highlight where there are delays in our system and in line with other NHS boards across Scotland we are seeing increasing demands on our services.
“We treat patients in order of clinical priority and length of wait and tell patients as soon as possible when delays are identified.”
SNP MSP Fiona Hyslop defended NHS Lothian’s performance.
She said: “This period covered a challenging winter for the NHS and severe weather in early March which caused disruption that took hospitals time to recover from.
“Since the treatment time guarantee was introduced, 1.6 million patients have received their treatment within the required timeframe.
“I know from constituents who have contacted me that there is and has been a specific issue with orthopaedic waiting times and I have taken this up repeatedly with the chief executive of NHS Lothian.
“I know an additional consultant for orthopaedics was recruited in January and an elective centre for knee and hip operations is planned at St John’s.
“Despite record levels of staffing and spend in the NHS, with the welcome fact people are living longer, demand for hip and knee operations is also increasing. I recognise that this doesn’t help patients immediately so I will continue as the constituency MSP to press NHS Lothian to tackle this issue urgently.”
Miles Briggs, Scottish Conservative Health Spokesman, added: “This is more evidence of the SNP’s shambolic stewardship of the NHS.
“No- one’s pretending running the health service is easy, but we’ve had several years of decline across several areas, and no meaningful explanation.”