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.

 Waiting times information release on 26th May 2009, including information on waiting times for:

• An outpatient appointment
• Inpatient or day case admission
• Accident & Emergency Waiting Times
• Surgery following a hip fracture (see Notification below)
• A diagnostic test (see Notification below)
• A cataract procedure
• A cardiac procedure

A Statistical Publication Notice explains the key points from the 26th May 2009 release.

This release contains the fourth publication of data following the introduction of 'New Ways of Defining and Measuring Waiting Times' on 1st January 2008. The statistics marked with an asterisk in the above list are derived from the New Ways compliant Waiting Times Data Warehouse and are classed as 'provisional' and may be updated in subsequent publications. See here for more information.

'New Ways of Defining and Measuring Waiting Times' introduced a significant change in how the NHSScotland collects and defines waiting times, and also how waiting lists are clinically and administratively managed.

New Ways:

Introduces nationally-consistent arrangements that take periods of patient unavailablity into account when measuring and reporting waiting times:

• Introduces a way of dealing fairly and appropriately with patients who do not attend appointments or who refuse a reasonable offer of an appointment;
• Makes explicit the shared responsibility of patients, GPs and hospital services to communicate changes in circumstances to facilitate efficient management of waiting and scheduling of care and to keep patients informed of their waiting status;
• Replaces the system of 'Availablity Status Codes'.

Further information on New Ways

Please note, there are apparent anomalies between figures published from New Ways and Acute Hospital Care data sources. The figures for Elective Admissions and New Outpatients in New Ways is considerably lower than the equivalent information published on the Acute Hospital Care web pages. This is largely due to the use of different definitions between the two sets of figures. For example, Acute Hospital Care information includes non-waiting list cases and non GP/GDP referrals, which do not form part of the published Scotland figures in New ways. ISD are carrying out further detailed investigations into these differences.

Notice of change to National Statistics

May 2009 - Notification of change to published tables

Hip Fracture audit:
Hip fracture patients admitted after 31st December 2008 will no longer be audited centrally by SHFA. As a result of the hospitals' success in meeting the 98% hip fracture Time to Theatre target, the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit resource will be transferred to an alternative audit of access to musculoskeletal services in 2009. In the immediate future, no data will be available to monitor compliance with the Hip Fracture time to theatre target. Work is ongoing to investigate methods of providing comparable data from routine sources. NHS Boards continue to ensure local delivery of this standard. Please contact  Rik Smith  with any queries.

Diagnostic tests:
Prior to May 2009 tables were published that showed key diagnostic test information at Scotland level. Commencing from the publication on 26 May 2009, these data will now be shown at NHS Board level.

May 2008

Information on how this release of waiting times data differs from previous releases is provided in the papers National Statistics Notice of Change and Statistical Continuity .

National Statistics is a quality marker applied to statistics certified by the UK Statistics Authority as compliant with its Code of Practice for Statistics. The "List of Tables" page indicates which statistics within this section are National Statistics.