First Minister urged to guarantee treatment for longest NHS waits by Christmas

John Swinney has been urged to guarantee people waiting more than two years for NHS treatment will be dealt with by Christmas.

The Scottish Government pledged to eradicate waits of more than two years by September 2022 – a goal which was missed, with more than 800,000 people waiting for treatment or a diagnostic test earlier this year.

Of those, 7,146 had been waiting longer than two years for treatment on an in-patient or day case basis, and 1,324 had been waiting for more than three years.

At First Minister’s Questions on Thursday, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar pressed Mr Swinney to guarantee treatment for those waiting the longest in the coming months.

Quoting a freedom of information request from his party which found a seven-year wait for urology treatment, six years for general surgery and five years in ophthalmology, gynaecology and orthopaedics, Mr Sarwar described the situation as “scandalous”.

It is not clear why the singular waits quoted by Mr Sarwar were so long, with some outlying cases being caused by extraneous circumstances.

“The SNP promised to clear waits of over two years by September 2022, but they have utterly failed,” Mr Sarwar said.

“People who go untreated often end up in emergency departments as their condition deteriorates, placing more pressure on NHS services.

“So can the First Minister guarantee that who has already waited over two years will be treated by Christmas?”

The First Minister did not directly answer Mr Sarwar’s question, instead saying the situation has improved.

“The problems that Mr Sarwar puts to me, of course, are an accumulation of the impact of the delay to treatment because of the pandemic,” he said.

“Those figures that I just put on the record were the 10th quarterly increase in a row and they are 9.9% higher than the same period last year.

“That comes on top of the fact that we’re seeing a 5.1% increase in the number of operations performed over the last 12 months, which addressed part of the issue Mr Sarwar puts to me, principally about orthopaedics and other treatment.”

The First Minister added that while there has been “improvement”, there are still “significant challenges to overcome as a consequence of the pandemic”.

Mr Sarwar also pushed for a commitment to clear the delayed discharge backlog and urged the Scottish Government to re-draft its winter preparedness plan, which he said is not enough to deal with the “permanent crisis” in the NHS over the next few months.

Responding, the First Minister said the Government is “putting in place the planning” to deal with the issues facing the health service.

He also went on the attack, pushing for more funding from the UK Government on health that would filter through to Scotland.

“As the UK Secretary of State for Health said when he was in opposition, ‘all roads lead to Westminster’ on funding,” the First Minister said.

“We wait to find out what the Budget will tell us after Parliament comes back from the October recess.

“Let’s see if the Labour Party breaks with austerity.

“Let’s see if Labour are prepared to invest.

“Because what Mr Sarwar has put to me today is a demand for more investment, and we’re not getting that from the Labour Government.”