Why is this National Indicator important?
A key concern for patients and NHS Scotland alike is the wait between referral from primary care to the start of any necessary hospital treatment. Reducing this wait is one of the top priorities of Government.
Getting access to outpatient assessment, diagnostic tests and inpatient care as quickly as possible is important as, in many cases, this is likely to have an impact on the health outcomes of patients. Faster access also reduces stress for the individuals who require these services and for their families. Reducing backlogs and queues also leads to greater efficiency across the range of services involved, as well as a better health care experience for patients. It must be remembered that many patients, such as emergencies, are seen and treated right away, without ever having to wait.
What will influence this National Indicator?
- Health of the Scottish population, and the effect of interventions to improve health.
- Provision of services in primary and secondary sectors, sufficient to meet demand and effects of shifting the balance of care.
- Managing referrals to ensure appropriate care pathways are in place.
- Behaviour of patients in attending clinics and communication between clinical teams and patients.
- Improving processes and efficiency to reduce bottlenecks and backlogs.
- Higher quality of healthcare interventions resulting in less follow-up or readmission.
What is the Government's role?
The Government provides direction and leadership to healthcare providers: NHS Boards; supporting agencies and voluntary sector organisations. This includes a governance framework for delivery of reduced waiting times and quality improvement standards.
It also manages the delivery of reduced waiting times against established targets, for example HEAT (Health Improvement, Efficiency, Access, Treatment) and QIS (Quality Improvement Scotland standards), and to advise ministers and the public of progress.
The Government will also establish national programmes where these would provide support and add value to the work of healthcare providers in reducing waiting times.
How are we performing?
NHS Boards aim to achieve annual milestones for reducing inpatient or day case waiting times culminating in delivery of an 18 week referral to treatment time from December 2011. In the first instance, a key milestone is to achieve 15 weeks maximum wait for both outpatient consultations and hospital admission as an inpatient or day case by the end of March 2009. This will be further reduced to 12 weeks maximum wait by the end of March 2010.
Inpatient and day case waiting times are a key component of the overall referral to treatment times. The other key elements are first outpatient appointments and diagnostic tests waiting times.
The measure that is currently used to judge Performance is the 15 weeks maximum wait for hospital admission as an inpatient or day case. Based on provisional New Ways data, between 30 June 2008 and 30 June 2009 the number of inpatients and day cases waiting over 15 weeks reduced from 1,308 to 112.
For information, based on provisional New Ways data;
between 30 June 2008 and 30 June 2009 the number of patients waiting over 15 weeks for an outpatient consultation reduced from 3,961 to 17.
on 30 June 2009 the number of inpatients and day cases waiting over 12 weeks was 268 and the number of outpatients waiting more than 12 weeks was 117.
Source: ISD Scotland
These data are derived from 'New Ways of Defining, Recording and Measuring Waiting Times' which was introduced on the 1 January 2008 and allows periods of unavailability to be deducted from a patient's total wait. New Ways information replaced existing definitions for waiting times data including the abolition of Availability Status Codes. The New Ways statistics are classed as provisional, as they require some further work in order to improve their reliability. A full description on data quality is available on the ISD website ( http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5573.html).
Methodology
Performance Improving: A decrease of greater than 10% from the same quarter in the previous year.
Performance Maintaining: Variation of ± 10% from the same quarter in the previous year.
Performance Worsening: An increase of greater than 10% from the same quarter in the previous year.
Please note; as the number waiting more than 15 weeks approaches zero a small change in absolute numbers may result in a disproportionately large percentage change.
The 15 weeks performance measure is due to be replaced in November with a new performance measure to gauge progress towards delivery of 18 weeks referral to treatment.
For information on general methodological approach, please click here.
Further Information
Scotland Performs Technical Note
Statistics Topic Page
Who are our partners?
Territorial and Special NHS Boards
Scottish Health Council
Local Authorities
Royal Colleges of Health
Scottish Partnership Forum
Voluntary Sector healthcare providers
Related Strategic Objectives
Healthier
Safer and Stronger
Smarter
Wealthier and Fairer
Greener