NHS Waiting Times To Be Reduced With Fifty Million Pound Investment

Scotland's NHS is to see an additional £50 million investment to improve waiting times performance, announced health secretary Shona Robison.

The investment will be distributed across the territorial health boards to improve performance in a range of areas; including outpatient consultations, diagnostic tests and treatment. This will support improvements in waiting times, particularly for inpatients who have been experiencing waits above the 12 week treatment time guarantee.

Ms Robison, said; "This increased funding of £50 million will help us reduce waiting times at all stages of a patient's journey through the NHS - the original consultation, and tests required, and the final procedure itself. "

This investment comes in addition to the £10 million that was recently invested to reduce outpatient waiting times focusing on areas such as orthopaedics, ophthalmology and gastroenterology.

Following this investment, the most recent waiting times statistics, show a number of patients waiting for a first outpatient consultation has reduced by 19.7% between December and March.

The Scottish Government is further investing £200 million in a new network of five new diagnostic and elective treatment centers, plus an expansion of the existing Golden Jubilee.

Ms Robison, said; "While it is encouraging to see an improvement in outpatient performance, I absolutely recognise the need to do more to reduce waiting times - Particularly when in comes to the 12 week TTG for inpatient and day cases.

"Our ambitions for the NHS are founded on the twin approach of investment and reform. We made clear that £128 million is also available this year to support the delivery of service reform. All of this is backed up with our long term vision for the health service, as laid out in both our National Clinical Strategy and Health and Social Care Delivery Plan."

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