NHS waiting lists reach new high with over 864,000 waiting to be seen, figures show

The number of Scots who are on an NHS waiting list has reached a new high – with official figures showing 864,366 patients are waiting either for an appointment, for tests or for hospital treatment.

That includes more than 9,000 patients who have been waiting at least two years for either in-patient or day care treatment in a hospital, or for an outpatient appointment.

Public Health Scotland data from the end of June 2024 also showed there were 1,324 patients who have been waiting three years or more for hospital treatment, either as an in-patient or on a day care basis.

They were among the 7,146 Scots who have been waiting two years or more for such treatment.

Overall there were 155,558 patients waiting for hospital treatment as of June 30, with the figures also showing 558,896 people waiting for an outpatient appointment at this time.

This includes 2,024 people have been on the list for more than 104 weeks for such an appointment.

While the Scottish Government has set targets to reduce the longest waits for NHS treatment in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, Public Health Scotland said that “these targets have yet to be achieved”.

The targets, announced by then-health secretary Humza Yousaf in July 2022, set out to end waits of more than two years for in-patient or day case treatment by the end of September 2022, with waits of a year or more to be ended by the end of September this year.

Public Health Scotland however noted that in all categories waits had increased over the last year.

As of June 30, there were 37,972 patients who have been waiting a year or more for hospital treatment – with this total having increased by 3,615 since the targets were announced two years ago, with patients waiting 52 weeks or more now making up almost a quarter (24.4%) of those on the waiting list.

Overall, the number of patients waiting for hospital treatment had increased by 3.6% (19,466) from the end of March to June 30 2024 – with the waiting list 7.2% higher than it was at the end of June 2023.

Public Health Scotland also noted the number of people waiting had increased by 302,543 since the end of March 2020, just after the start of the pandemic.

For patients waiting for an outpatient appointment, ministers had hoped to eradicate waits of two years or more by the end of August 2022, while waits of a year or more were to be ended by March of 2023.

Public Health Scotland noted: “These targets have yet to be achieved and ongoing waits in all three measures have increased over the last year.”

As of June 30, there were 58,191 patients waiting a year or more for an appointment, with this up by 11,278 on the previous year.

Meanwhile, separate figures showed a very slight fall in the number of people waiting for eight key diagnostic tests.

This fell to 149,912 at the end of June – a decrease of less than 0.1% from the total at the end of March.

However, Public Health Scotland also noted: “The latest figure remains higher than prior to when the Covid-19 pandemic began to significantly impact service provision.

“For instance, it remains more than two thirds (70%) higher than at the end of June 2019 when there were 88,012 waits ongoing.”