NHS Scotland waiting lists reach record levels

Scotland’s NHS has seen its waiting lists, once again, reach record levels. New figures from Public Health Scotland reveal that the equivalent of one in every seven Scots is on a waiting list. Care targets aren’t being met either, and the NHS is falling short on targets set for inpatient and day case waits. 

A lot of the blame is being directed at Scotland’s new First Minister Humza Yousaf. From the time he took over as health secretary to the month he left the role, there was an increase of over 175,000 patients on NHS waiting lists, with 779,533 patients on lists at the end of March. Worse still, over 72,000 of the patients currently on waiting lists have been stuck on them for over a year.

In December, BMA chair Dr Iain Kennedy warned that the very survival of NHS Scotland was threatened, highlighting the service’s workforce crisis and saying that ‘Scotland’s overstretched NHS is on its knees’.