HUMZA Yousaf has pledged action to reduce the number of patients waiting too long for NHS treatment – with the First Minister announcing that £30 million will be spent to tackle the issue in the next three months.
It comes after official figures showed that at the end of 2023 there were 824,725 people in Scotland waiting for an outpatient appointment, tests or treatment.Scotland also revealed that as of December 31, there were 17,761 Scots who had been waiting 18 months or more for in-patient or day case treatment – including 7179 patients who had been waiting at least two years while 1446 patients had been on the list for three years or more.
The First Minister said: “As I set out last October, we are committed to accelerating treatment in our NHS and reducing inpatient and day-case waiting lists by an estimated 100,000 patients over the next three years, backed by planned investment of an extra £100m annually. Yousaf added: “Together, our actions will further enable NHS Scotland to maximise capacity, build greater resilience and deliver year-on-year reductions in the number of patients who have waited too long for treatment.”We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.