Most health boards could miss surgery waiting time target
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The Scottish government set out a series of waiting time targets in July
Most of Scotland's 14 health boards say they cannot guarantee being able to meet government targets to eradicate long waits for surgery.
The Scottish government pledged last month that no-one should be waiting more than two years in most specialities by 31 August.
However, only NHS Forth Valley, NHS Tayside and NHS Highland have told BBC Scotland they will meet this deadline.
The health minister said good progress was being made on waiting times.
However, Humza Yousaf admitted that NHS Scotland was still under "relentless" pressure.
"We're still facing a challenge. We've just come out of another wave of Covid," he told BBC Scotland.
"There's no doubt that the relentless Covid pressure alongside all the other pressures has made it a very, very difficult time."
Mr Yousaf told BBC Scotland he would update the Scottish Parliament once the latest waiting figures were published, but added there had been a "refocus" in the NHS on hitting the "really ambitious" targets.
The Scottish government set out a series of targets in July in its bid to reduce Scotland's record waiting times.
The targets are to treat outpatients in most specialities who have waited:
Two years by the end of August 2022
18 months by the end of December 2022
One year by the end of March 2023
There are separate targets for inpatients, who have to stay overnight in hospital for treatment.
Of Scotland's 14 health boards, three said they were on track to meet the first outpatient target. Of the remainder, eight said they were working to reduce waiting times, but did not confirm they would meet the target.
Three health boards, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland, did not respond to the BBC's request.
A further blow to one board - NHS Lothian - came on Monday when it was forced to postpone almost all operations because of a leak in a unit that sterilises surgical equipment.
Emergency and urgent surgery will be prioritised for at least the next two weeks as they try to fix the problem.
The boards who said they would meet the deadline - NHS Forth Valley, NHS Tayside and NHS Highland - only cover about a fifth of the Scottish population.
As part of the Scottish government's drive to reduce waiting times, patients will be offered hospital appointments outside their local health board areas.
The most recent NHS Scotland figures, external showed there were 2,831 outpatients and 10,613 inpatients who had been waiting more than two years for surgery at the end of March.
NHS Forth Valley said it had been training advanced nurse practitioners to carry out minor surgical procedures as part of its effort to tackle long waits.
Previously, the board had been struggling to keep vasectomy waiting times under a year.
Consultant urologist Joby Taylor said training some nurses in routine surgery could help keep waiting times down
Joby Taylor, consultant urologist at the Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, said training nurses to carry out some procedures could free up two or three days a week of consultant time.
"Quite a lot of our referrals are for routine and relatively minor surgical procedures. More than 10% of our referrals are for things like vasectomies and circumcisions so it's quite a big burden for us as at team to deal with, he said.
"It's also something we felt comfortable with the right person, getting them up to speed and running a complete and independent service with consultant support - but leaving us more time to look at more complex surgical procedures."
The board said waiting times in urology had now been reduced significantly.
- Published11 May 2022
