NHS patients not treated within legal time limit

An increasing number of NHS patients in Scotland are not being treated within the timescale guaranteed by legislation, according to new figures.

Scottish Government officials have been called before Holyrood’s audit committee to explain how the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and The Patient Rights (Treatment Time Guarantee) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 will be effectively enforced.

The health secretary said she acknowledged that “more must be done”.

Under statutory regulations, patients in Scotland should receive treatment within 12 weeks of their treatment plan being agreed with their doctor. However, no sanctions have been raised against health boards who fail to meet this target.

Although 97 per cent of patients were treated in line with the law over the course of 2014, that figure has fallen to 94.5 per cent in the first three months of 2015, with 4,499 people being treated outwith the legal timescale this year so far.

Three health boards - NHS Lothian, NHS Highland and NHS Grampian - were responsible for 70 per cent of the broken timescale promises, but most health boards broke the law at least once.

Scottish Government health secretary Shona Robison said: “Health boards across Scotland continue to deliver some of the lowest waiting times on record, with three quarters of a million patients treated within our 12-week treatment time guarantee since it was introduced in October 2012.

“However, last winter was extremely challenging for our health boards, and this Government acknowledges that more must be done to maintain and improve on performance to meet the rightly demanding targets we have set. Patients should expect nothing less.”