Three-year plan to hit NHS Scotland waiting time targets

Scotland's health secretary has pledged that key NHS waiting times will be met within the next three years.

Speaking as she set out a new improvement plan, Jeane Freeman admitted that some patients were still having to wait too long for treatment.

A legal requirement for all patients to start treatment within twelve weeks has never been met.

And waiting times for cancer patients hit a six-year high earlier this year, according to official figures.

Opposition parties said Ms Freeman's improvement plan was an admission that the government had failed to deliver on its promises to patients.

The Scottish government's main current targets are for:

Performance is currently well below these targets - with the figures standing at 74.6%, 75.1% and 84.6% respectively in the three months to June 2018.

In a statement to Holyrood, Ms Freeman said the aim was for all three targets to be met by the spring of 2021, with lower targets set for the next two years as part of a phased improvement plan.

She said the Scottish government will invest a total of about £650m over the next three years to make a "sustainable and significant step-change on waiting times".

This will be in addition to its existing £200m plan for delivering elective and diagnostic treatment centres across the country.

The plan will focus on improving capacity across the NHS - including the early delivery of a new CT scanner at the Golden Jubilee hospital and a second MRI scanner and two new theatres at Forth Valley Royal Hospital.

It will also aim to increase clinical effectiveness and efficiency, and to design and implement new models of care across the country.

And there will be work to increase the recruitment and training of GPs, nurses, midwifes and consultant specialties with the highest vacancy rates.

Ms Freeman told MSPs that the improvement plan was focused on reducing the "length of time people are waiting for key areas of health care".

She admitted: "Simply put, some people are waiting too long to receive the care they need."

Ms Freeman went on to say: "Our central aim is to significantly improve the experience of patients waiting to be seen or treated.

"Meeting these commitments requires work to address existing targets, but it also requires a whole-system approach spanning hospital, primary, community, and social care to really increase sustainable delivery.

"Solutions will be different in different areas of the country and in different specialties - but the drive for improvement will be national in scope. Achieving this will require a focused, intense programme of work that accelerates action that is already underway."

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs said: "The fact is that the treatment time guarantee, legislated for all the way back in 2012, has never been met.

"Now the SNP has publicly accepted that it has failed to deliver on promises made to patients across Scotland.

"Far more is needed to address Scotland's NHS workforce crisis, and year after year, the SNP proves it is not up to the job."

Labour health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said extra investment in the NHS was "desperately needed", adding: "This government gave patients a legal right to treatment within 12 weeks, however that law has been broken 150,000 times.

"Is it the government's intention to keep on breaking it's own law until 2021?"

The Macmillan Cancer Support charity said: "While we welcome the Scottish government's promised action plan and investment to address this complex issue, every week that passes sees people waiting too long for treatment and we want to see improvement made sooner."