NHS wait times "disgraceful" as patients wait four years for routine surgery
The figures revealed by the Scottish Conservatives have been branded "scarcely believable"
The Scottish Conservatives are describing wait times for routine NHS surgeries “disgraceful” after figures from the party revealed some patients face delays of four years.
The worst incident was with NHS Tayside, where one person was left waiting four years and 175 days for a joint replacement.
The health board did not provide data on the procedures separately, so it is not known whether it was for a hip or knee replacement.
Scottish Tory health spokesperson said the delays were “scarcely believable” with one patient in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde waiting three years and 330 days for a hip replacement.
"Scarcely believable"
The health board also had the longest average wait of 340 days for a hip replacement.
Meanwhile, NHS Lothian's average wait for a knee replacement was 370 days.
An NHS Grampian patient waited three years and 179 days for cataract surgery, while the average wait for the procedure in NHS Orkney was 236 days.
Dr Gulhane said: "It is beyond disgraceful that any patient should be waiting for over four years for a routine procedure. While they are described as routine, getting the surgery carried out is life-changing for patients.
"The fact that is occurring right across Scotland exposes the SNP's horrendous mismanagement of our NHS during their near 17 years in office.”
"Beyond disgraceful"
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: "The Scottish Government remains committed to driving down waiting times.
"We have increased investment in frontline NHS boards by more than half a billion pounds in the draft Budget - a real-terms increase of almost 3% - but we know that to make progress we need to not just invest in services but also reform the way they are delivered.
"We are working with NHS boards to reduce long waits, which have been exacerbated by the impacts of the global pandemic.”
Dr Gulhane added: “"Successive SNP health secretaries - including Humza Yousaf - have presided over dire workforce planning which has left frontline services dangerously understaffed.
"These intolerable waits will be having a deeply alarming impact on these patients, not only physically, but mentally as well.
"Intolerable waits"
"One in seven Scots are languishing on NHS waiting lists and the SNP have miserably failed to eradicate delayed discharge from our hospitals as they promised to do in 2015.
"At every turn, the SNP have allowed our NHS to fall into chaos.
"The current SNP Health Secretary Michael Matheson is scandal-ridden and unfit for office. Since taking up his role, he has done nothing to get on top of our NHS crisis and more and more patients are suffering as a result. He should do the decent thing and resign. If he doesn't, Humza Yousaf should sack him."
The Scottish Government spokesperson finished: “The commitments set out in our £1 billion NHS recovery plan support an increase in inpatient, day-case, and outpatient activity through the implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care, and we opened two new national treatment centres in Fife and Highland in spring 2023, providing additional and protected capacity across Scotland."