Scottish Government unveils £32 million funding plan to help reduce NHS waiting times

A £32 million funding package to help reduce waiting times has been unveiled by the Scottish Government.

A total of £850m will go towards improving waiting times over three years. PIcture: Greg Macvean

The investment will help deliver additional clinics and extra staff, health secretary Jeane Freeman says, as well as providing an increase in cataract procedures, hip and knee replacements and general surgery. It comes amid ongoing criticism about lengthy waiting times faced by patients in Scotland’s NHS.

A legal guarantee of treatment within 12 weeks has been ridiculed by opposition parties after being breached on tens of thousands of occasions.

Ms Freeman unveiled the latest funding package during a visit to the Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline yesterday, where NHS Fife has adopted innovative approaches to reduce waiting times.

Diagnostic and surveillance tests have been used for local endoscopy patients, as well as those from NHS Lothian and NHS Forth Valley. There has also been the introduction of a ‘Jack and Jill’ theatre to cut waiting times for cataract patients, allowing a surgeon to work simultaneously across two adjoining theatres.

“I am pleased to see the difference the developments here are making to patients in Fife and beyond,” Ms Freeman said.

“The investment I am announcing today comes on top of the £70m outlined in April this year. It is good to see that funding is making a tangible difference in hospitals such as the Queen Margaret and I am determined that should be the case across Scotland. Our Waiting Times Improvement Plan will also see the creation of new elective and diagnostic centres, leading to quicker appointments in planned surgery, taking pressure off emergency treatment. We will continue to ensure the additional funding delivers the substantial and sustainable improvements needed.”

The investment brings the amount being spent on the Waiting Times Improvement Plan for 2019/20 to £102m.

The £102m is part of the £850m set aside to support the delivery of the plan over a three-year period.

Construction has started on the £15m expansion of the ophthalmology unit at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Glasgow and NHS Highland is expected to start work on the £36m North of Scotland Elective Centre by the end of this year. Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said: “Waiting times are longer than ever under this SNP administration and the SNP must do everything possible to reduce them.”