Meeting of the Parliament 14 June 2023
There are 779,533 patients on waiting lists in Scotland. That is one in seven Scots, and it is the highest number of people waiting since records began. At the same time, there has been a 73 per cent increase in the number of people going private because they cannot wait any longer. Despite that and the warm words and promises of action, the number of people waiting is increasing. When Humza Yousaf took over as health secretary, 603,000 people were waiting for diagnosis or treatment; now, the figure is 175,000 higher.
This touches every area, from failure to meet cancer waiting times targets, which we know has profound consequences on outcomes; to orthopaedics, where people are suffering in pain, waiting for literally years for treatment; to children waiting in distress for more than a year for an appointment with child and adolescent mental health services. In response, Humza Yousaf set targets for people with the longest waits to be treated. We welcomed the fact that out-patient waits of more than two years were to be eradicated—completely gone—by August 2022, but that has not happened. In-patient waits of more than two years were also to be eradicated by September 2022. That has not happened. Waits of more than 18 months were to be eradicated by December 2022 for out-patients. That also has not happened. One-year waits for out-patients were to be gone completely by March 2023, and—you guessed it, Presiding Officer—that has not happened either. In fact, there are 31,498 patients still waiting.
By every measure that the Scottish National Party Government has set itself, it has failed. In England, with a population 10 times greater than that in Scotland, there are only 599 people waiting more than two years, while here the figure is 7,849, which is 13 times higher. It is clear that the NHS recovery plan that was launched two years ago simply has not worked.
The consequences of that could not be more stark. Over 18,300 patients died while on waiting lists last year, which is a 39 per cent increase on the number of such deaths before the pandemic. Those are people for whom treatment could have saved or prolonged their lives. While SNP members are fighting like ferrets in a sack, mired by their internal party scandals, Scotland’s healthcare system plunges deeper into crisis.