Introduction
Latest PublicationsPublished: 27 March 2012
New Cancer Waiting Times to December 2011
Published: 28 February 2012
18 weeks Referral To Treatment Waiting Times
Published: 28 February 2012
Audiology Waiting Times
Published: 28 February 2012
Inpatient, Day Case and New Outpatient Stage of Treatment waiting times
Published: 28 February 2012
Diagnostic tests waiting times
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Latest News
27 March 2012 - Cancer Waiting Times. In October 2008, the Scottish Government (SG) published Better Cancer Care - An Action Plan, where it announced it would:
- Extend the 62-day urgent referral to treatment target to include screened positive and all patients referred urgently with a suspicion of cancer.
- Introduce a new 31-day target for all patients diagnosed with cancer (whatever their route of referral) from decision to treat to treatment.
The target, that 95% of all eligible patients should wait no longer than 31 or 62 days, was achieved by December 2011; the timescale agreed by the Scottish Government. These targets are considered as National Standards from 1st April 2012.
27 October 2011 - Emergency Department Waiting Times. The Emergency Department Waiting Times publication will be moving to a broader Emergency Department Activity publication, under the remit of ISD's Unscheduled Care programme, to be published on the 29th November 2011. This change is to ensure that work within ISD becomes more efficient, by bringing all the detailed, published Emergency Department information under a single programme. The move also acts upon the findings from consultations earlier this year which identified a need to publish further detail on Emergency Department activity and to continue publishing performance against the 4-hour standard.
26 September 2011 - A fitter future - change at ISD Scotland. ISD is engaged in a comprehensive organisational review, designed to help the organisation adapt to meeting changing customer needs and to deliver required reductions in baseline funding. We are developing a more flexible structure and workforce model, which will provide customers with a service even more responsive to their needs. For more information 
[50KB].
4 August 2011 - A correction to the methodology for counting audiology waits will be applied to the August 2011 Publication of Audiology Waiting Times. This affects the calculation of the number waiting over a given time (e.g. over 12 weeks). Please see Audiology - Latest News for more detail of the change.
5 July 2011 - In February 2011, ISD launched a consultation [20kb] on the Publication of Waiting Times Statistics, the results of which were published on the ISD website in May 2011. Further to the results 
[300kb] of the consultation, discussions around the publication of Inpatient, Day Case and Outpatient Stage of Treatment "New Ways" statistics have been ongoing.
The initial results determined that the "New Ways" statistics would be scaled back to produce the full analyses in an annual report, with the publication of just key statistics in the other quarters.
However, as a result of this further, specific consideration by Scottish Ministers, Scottish Government officials and ISD, it has been decided to retain the full range of existing "New Ways" statistics to be published each quarter.
17 June 2011 - We are currently consulting on changes to the audiology publication to introduce a new table to report waiting times for one-stop audiology services. The consultation also includes significant changes to the way data are presented. The consultation document is available here [130kb]. The closing date for receipt of responses is Friday 8th July 2011.
May 2011 - A consultation document [20kb] which reviewed and summarised ISD's proposals for a number of changes to publication of Waiting Times statistics was published in February 2011. The consultation finished on Friday 25th March 2011, lasted just over 4½ weeks and during that time we received many constructive and helpful responses.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all contributors who have taken the time to participate in this process and provided valuable feedback. Details of the consultation results can be found here [300kb], including our final recommendations to be incorporated in Waiting Times statistics from August 2011
Waiting times are important to patients and are a measure of how the NHS is responding to demands for services. Measuring and regular reporting of waiting times highlights where there are delays in the system and enables monitoring of the effectiveness of NHS performance throughout the country. The NHS in Scotland has been set a number of targets for maximum waiting times. The Scottish Government continues to be committed to improving information on waiting to provide a clear and transparent picture of NHS performance.
The waiting times section of the ISD website provides the latest information about NHS waiting times in Scotland based on nationally available information.
Accident & Emergency, Diagnostics and New Ways publications have all been designated as National Statistics by the United Kingdom Statistics Authority.
Waiting Times Programme Newsletter
