Background
The introduction of 'New Ways of Defining and Measuring Waiting Lists' to Scotland on the 31 December 2007 has led to a significant change in how the NHS Scotland collects and defines waiting times, and also how waiting lists are clinically and administratively managed.
Key 'New Ways' changes:
- Changes how waiting times are measures and reported
- Introduces the concept of a 'reasonable offer' of appointment or admission
- Records and reports patient non-attendance and unavailability
- Ends 'Availability Status Codes' and make the management of waiting clear and transparent
To view the most recent Waiting Times publications, please visit Waiting Times Home.
Refresh project
The New Ways refresh project was developed to help reduce the administrative effort on staff involved in collecting and monitoring waiting times data while still retaining the transparency of waiting times reporting as intended by the original New Ways policy. An additional benefit was that it would help NHS Boards to monitor the 18 weeks Referral to Treatment standard. A Steering Group was formed to oversee the delivery of the New Ways refresh. Chaired by Jonathan Procter, Director of Access at NHS Forth Valley, the group brought together senior Health Board operational managers, ISD and the Scottish Government.
The changes implemented through the New Ways refresh ensured that the majority of records enter the data warehouse - addressing what had been a long standing issue for Health Boards. The refresh also introduced a new four 'flag' scale for records 
[76KB] so users can quickly identify which records are free of errors right through to records that are not valid for waiting time calculations. Please see the functional requirements document [200KB] for more detail.
The new Refresh environment for the Waiting Times Data Mart was ‘made live’ early at the beginning of November 2009. Refreshed data applied to quarter end December 2009 returns for publication in February 2010.
Data Task Force
New Ways of Defining and Measuring Waiting Times went live on 1 January 2008. To help manage and mitigate risks associated with getting data for publication in place and on time for the first official statistics at the end of May 2008, covering the first three months of 2008, a short life Task Force was set up at the end of February 2008 to oversee preparatory work. More information on the Data Task Force.
