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 23 February 2010, including information on waiting times for:

• An outpatient appointment
• Inpatient or day case admission
• Accident & Emergency Waiting Times
• Audiology 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 23 February 2010 release.

This release contains the latest publication of data following the introduction of 'New Ways of Defining and Measuring Waiting Times' on 1 January 2008. Data are taken from the New Ways compliant Waiting Times Data Warehouse.

'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 are 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 is carrying out further detailed investigations into these differences.

Notice of change to National Statistics

February 2010
Audiology:
From February 2010 the format of the data presented on the website has been updated to include trend information showing a combination of monthly and quarterly data.

Cataract and cardiac patients:
Cataract and cardiac patients have been excluded from the key tables in this publication as the new outpatient and day case/inpatient waiting time targets do not apply.  These patients have a Whole Journey waiting time standard of 18 weeks which is reported separately in the Whole Journey section of this publication.

Publication of new tables:
Three new tables have been added to the February 2010 publication:

Tables A1c and A1d present ongoing and completed waits for all referral sources.  These tables are published in anticipation of the all referral source standard for new outpatients as of 31 March 2010.  Tables relate only to patients added to the waiting list on or after 1st April 2009 (for more information please see the data quality paper available here.

Table I3 details waits for patients undergoing cataract surgery for second eyes and also incorporates patients who undergo their treatment under a One Stop cataract system (which combines consultation, pre-operative assessment and surgery all on the same day).

Implementation of Refresh project:
This is the first publication to incorporate 'Refresh' data (see August 2009 - Refresh project notification below for details).  More details are also available under the Data Quality section and here.

November 2009
Cancer:
Up until the period January to March 2009 cancer waiting times statistics have been published by the Scottish Government Health Department, and can be found at this link.

From the period April to June 2009 these statistics are published by ISD and are available at this  link.

Accident and Emergency Waiting Times:
From November 2009 the format of the data presented on the website has changed. The data has been separated into financial years and has moved from quarterly to monthly reporting. The data will continue to be updated quarterly.

August 2009
Refresh Project:
Commencing from early 2010, ISD plan to populate and publish New Ways  waiting times statistics following the implementation of the 'Refresh Project', the key aim of which was to increase the usefulness of the New Ways Warehouse to NHS Boards, ISD and to the Scottish Government.

The vision of the 'Refresh Project' is to "Better support the administrative and quality assurance processes within NHS Boards and provide better access to ALL submitted data whilst improving the quality of waiting times data."

The impact on currently published statistics will be fully explained in the February publication and is expected to be minimal, as full consideration of the overall quality and integrity of New Ways remains a key deliverable.

Audiology waiting times:
Systems are currently being developed and ISD plan to publish statistics relating to Audiology in November 2009.

Cancer:
Cancer Waiting times statistics are currently published by the Scottish Government Health Department. ISD Scotland plan to publish this data from November 2009.

May 2009 - Notification of change to published tables
Hip Fracture audit:
Hip fracture patients admitted after 31 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.