NHS aim to increace capacity by 10% to tackle operation waiting times
Scotland's interim Deputy CMO is speaking to Tay FM News after we revealed it may take 3-5 years for us get the patient backlog down.
After we revealed tens of thousands of people are waiting more than the legal 12 week guarantee for treatment, we're being told change will come but it can't be rushed.
Scotland's Interim Deputy CMO David Caesar hopes increasing capacity across the NHS will be the answer to tackling long waiting times for treatments.
David Caesar, admitted there is a backlog of patients, but told us the Scottish Government is aiming to increase patient activity by 10 percent compared with pre-pandemic levels:
"A lot of patients are waiting, we know that. We are going to be able to increase our capacity broadly across the NHS in Scotland, we hope, by 10% as soon as we can, so that's 10% above what we might have been pre-covid" he said.
The Scottish Government has previously promised 1500 more staff to run national elective and diagnostic treatment centres to tackle waiting times.
"It's going to take us a few years to get back to where we would have hoped. We are going to be communicating with patients about when they should expect to have their procedures and also how we might understand if their conditions have changed for example.
"We're going to do this as quickly as we can, as quickly as humanly possible" he added.
It's after Tay FM News spoke to Professor Michael Griffin from the The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, who is calling for reforms to the health service are needed, in the event of a future pandemic:
"The health service can't go back to the way it was, we have to do things differently. We have to, for instance, procedures like ultrasound scans, CT scans, blood investigations, all of those tests should be done in what we call a diagnostic hub." he said.
"Waiting lists are so long, for us to be able to put into place the diagnostic hubs, the elective surgical centres. no matter how quickly we can do that we are still going to face some years of significant waits for patients."
It's estimated over half of the 340,000 patients looking to be admitted into hospital have being waiting longer than the 12 week legal guarantee, that's thought to be around 170,000 people.
Among the estimated 170,000 people in Scotland awaiting surgery, was mum of five Nybee Snaddon from Dundee who feared she'd miss out on a potentially life-saving procedure on her bowel.
Two weeks ago NHS Tayside told her it couldn't admit her for treatment within the 12 week waiting time guarantee.
We raised her concerns with the health board alongside her local MSP Joe Fitzpatrick, who submitted a letter on behalf of Nybee.
She had her operation on the weekend and is now out of hospital.
"Even though I was leaving messages with the health board I really got to the point I thought unless a miracle, divine intervention kicked in - that would be it, unless I was on my death bed," she said.
"My voice wasn't enough but everyone else's was. You have done more in three weeks than anyone has done in three months."
But the Interim Deputy Chief Medical officer, also added the health service hasn't stopped treating people that desperately needed it.
"During covid we have been able to see patients with urgent conditions right the way throuought, so we've never stopped seeing emergencies, we've never stopped treating people having babies for example, we never stopped treating a lot of people who might have cancer."
We also asked Mr Caesar if the Scottish Government would support the introduction of diagnostic centres, as suggested by Professor Michael Griffin.
"We know that some procedures can be done in really rapid time, almost like a factory, but we also know that some things, cancer is a great example, that need to be treated by multiple specialists. It's almost like an ecosystem of care that you need.
So sometimes it can't be taken away from a hospital setting in the same way that other things can."
"We're got a work force in health and social care that have been absolutley amazing, and are tired as well we need to make sure we're not pressurising them to do things that are beyond them just at the moment. We need to make sure they are able to recoved.
"We recover them, we recover the services. We can't rush this ."