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Stage of Treatment Waiting Times

This dataset reports key statistics on Inpatient, Day case and New Outpatient Waiting Times, at NHS boards across Scotland. Starting from the November 2024 release, this set of statistics has been supplemented with data files exploring cross boundary flow between health boards across Scotland. For more information on stage of treatment waiting times see the quarterly NHS waiting times - stage of treatment publications. The date of the next release can be found on our list of forthcoming publications.

Due to the live nature of local Patient Management Systems and the national datamart, historical trend data are routinely refreshed from one publication to the next, leading to slight revisions in statistics, particularly those for the previous quarter end.

Across NHSScotland, the net effect of all revisions for new outpatients was an increase of 0.2% (+974) in the number of additions to list, 1% (+5,838) in the number of ongoing waits and 0.1% (+372) in the number of attendances compared to previously published figures for quarter ending 30 September 2024. Drawing the same comparison for inpatient and day case treatment, the net effect was an increase of 1.2% (+936) additions to list, 0.3% (+411) ongoing waits and 0.2% (+150) admissions.

For more information, please see the Data quality section of the website.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Source Waiting Times Data Warehouse. Homeopathy, mental health and obstetrics specialties are not included. Data from 1 October 2012 to 31 March 2014, for Inpatient and Day case admissions was sourced via aggregate returns from NHS Boards. NHS Boards local systems have since been modified to comply with TTG, and data from 1 April 2014 is sourced from the warehouse again. Due to data supply issues, NHS Ayrshire & Arran have provided PHS with locally sourced aggregated data to support the ongoing publication of national statistics. The data submitted cover the period from 1 October 2024 onwards to allow for year-on-year comparisons using the same data source. The aggregated data are not subject to the same level of quality assurance and therefore should be treated with caution.
Author Waiting Times
Last Updated March 5, 2025, 10:08 (GMT)
Created March 20, 2020, 14:39 (GMT)
Contact Address Public Health Scotland, Gyle Square, 1 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 9EB
Subject NHS Waiting Times
Frequency Quarterly
Time frame of data and timeliness Data from 1 January 2008 to date. There have been no delays in reporting.
Coverage Covers all NHS Boards in Scotland. Please note that data for NHS Ayrshire & Arran from October 2024 onwards has been sourced locally and not from the national waiting times datamart. Due to the constraints of the aggregated data, a limited set of statistics are presented in this latest release. Key omissions for NHS Ayrshire & Arran and NHSScotland are: median and 90th percentile figures for ongoing and completed waits, additions and removals, patient unavailability, non-attendance rates. Please note that data submitted by NHS Ayrshire & Arran are not available within the Cross Boundary Flow (CBF) datasets due to local system issues. The small number of waits that are showing for NHS Ayrshire & Arran in the CBF datasets are representative of records submitted by another health board. Therefore, please note that NHSScotland figures within the CBF datasets do not include NHS Ayrshire & Arran.
Completeness PHS carried out a project in 2009 to quantify and understand the differences between New Ways and other PHS data sources (SMR00, SMR01 and ISD(S)1). Provisional analysis of refresh data showed that approximately 98% of data submitted to the Warehouse is published.
Accuracy Detailed information on validation is available at the PHS Website (See Link 1). The data is subject to a sign-off procedure each quarter before publication where the data for the previous quarter is confirmed by the submitting Board. PHS carry out detailed fitness for publication evaluation every quarter including comparisons to previous figures and expected trends. ISD also check outputs from two different analytical tools. PHS carried out a project in 2009 to quantify and understand the differences between New Ways and other PHS data sources (SMR00, SMR01 and ISD(S)1). PHS carried out an audit of New Ways data quality in 2008 and the details can be found here under the heading 'Data Quality Assessment Project' at the Data Quality webpage on the PHS website (See Link 2).
Continuity of data Since 1992, there have been several significant changes in waiting times. Prior to 2008, data were derived using different rules that are not comparable with New Ways. From February 2010 publication PHS have implemented the 'Refresh Project' (See Link 3), the key aim of which was to increase the usefulness of the New Ways Warehouse to NHS Boards, PHS and to the Scottish Government. Then from 1 October 2012, the introduction of Treatment Time Guarantee resulted in further changes. A full history of waiting times is available in Waiting Times & Waiting List History (See Link 4). Homeopathy, mental health and obstetrics specialties are not included. Data from 1 October 2012 to 31 March 2014, for Inpatient and Day case admissions were sourced via aggregate returns from NHS Boards. NHS Boards local systems have since been modified to comply with TTG, and data from 1 April 2014 are sourced from the warehouse again. The distribution of waits files have been updated to include 4-week wait length bands up to 52 weeks and 13-week wait length bands from over 52 weeks up to more than 104 weeks, where previously these files showed the breakdown in 3-week time bands up to 52 weeks and over. In this release, there is a change to the inclusion criteria with respect to the counts of patient waits that are reported to be ongoing at the end of a month or quarter, i.e. the waiting list size. Waits of patients on a waiting list that are transferred to another Board, hospital or speciality in order to be seen at a new outpatient clinic or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case are now included in ongoing figures. Historically, these waits would be removed from the count of ongoing waits in the publication release that followed the recording of a transfer to avoid duplication. However, recent analysis indicates the reporting of such transferred waits is inconsistent across NHS Boards and services. Whilst investigations into this matter continue, it is now appropriate to include transferred waits within the count of ongoing waits as the impact of duplication is minimal.
Concepts and definitions The Waiting Times Data Warehouse consists of a series of 'open' records for patients still waiting for treatment and 'closed' records when patients are removed from the waiting list. All patients who are added to a waiting list for inpatient or day case treatment, for a new outpatient appointment at a consultant or dentist-led clinic or for a return outpatient appointment where a procedure is expected to be carried out should be included. Specialties with a low volume of patients at Scotland level have been excluded from the specialty breakdown therefore the specialty breakdown will not match the total presented under 'All Specialties'. The specialty breakdown figures will also differ slightly from the publication due to the open data being broken down to three digit specialty code whereas the publication is present at two digit level. New Ways Definitional Rules and Guidance is available: New Ways Rules & Guidance (5) TTG rules and guidance is available in the following documents: Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 (6) The Regulations and Directions under the Act - CEL 17 (2012) (7) The Regulations (Amended) under the Act - Amendment Regulations (2014) (8) The Directions under the Act - Directions (2019) (9) Treatment Time Guarantee Guidance – CEL 32 (2012) (10) Updated version of the NHSScotland Waiting Time Guidance – CEL 33 (2012) (11)
Disclosure The PHS protocol on Statistical Disclosure Protocol (12) is followed.
Revision statement Due to the live nature of local Patient Management Systems and the national datamart, historical trend data are routinely refreshed from one publication to the next, leading to slight revisions in statistics, particularly those for the previous quarter end. Across NHSScotland, the net effect of all revisions for new outpatients was an increase of 0.2% (+974) in the number of additions to list, 1% (+5,838) in the number of ongoing waits and 0.1% (+372) in the number of attendances compared to previously published figures for quarter ending 30 September 2024. Drawing the same comparison for inpatient and day case treatment, the net effect was an increase of 1.2% (+936) additions to list, 0.3% (+411) ongoing waits and 0.2% (+150) admissions. For more information, please see the Data quality section of the website (https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times-data-quality-issues/).
Official statistics designation National Statistics
Relevance and key uses of the statistics 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 including from 1 October 2012, Treatment Time Guarantee. Other uses of the data include information requests for a variety of customers, e.g. research charities; public companies; freedom of Information requests; information support to NHS Boards; health intelligence work; parliamentary questions and NHS Performs.
Format csv
Language English
Links

(1) PHS - Waiting Times Datamart

(2) PHS - Waiting Times Data Quality

(3) New Ways Rules and Guidance

(4) Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011

(5) Regulations and Directions (2012)

(6) Regulations (Amended) (2014)

(7) Patient Rights (Treatment Time Guarantee) Directions 2019

(8) Treatment Time Guarantee Guidance

(9) NHSScotland Waiting Time Guidance

(10) Public Health Scotland Statistical Disclosure Protocol

(11) Stage of Treatment Waiting Times publication

(12) UK Government Open Data site

(13) England HSCIC Publications

(14) Welsh Publications

(15) Northern Irish Health Publications