The Scottish Government

Title

Number of patients waiting more than 15 weeks for hospital inpatient or day case treatment.

National Indicator/Target

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.

Brief Description

The indicator is measuring the number of patients waiting more than 15 weeks for hospital inpatient or day case treatment. Following abolition of availability status codes ( ASCs) from 1 January 2008, periods of unavailability will be deducted from the inpatient and day case waits.

Strategic Objective(s) to Which Indicator Relates

This indicator informs progress in relation to the Healthier Strategic Objective.

More Detailed Definitions

Definitions of Keywords

ASCs are abolished from 1 January 2008 and so the indicator covers all patients. The indicator is based on inpatient and day case waiting times with periods of unavailability deducted from total wait.

Patients rights, the approach to offering appointments, and how periods of unavailability are deducted from the total wait is described under the New Ways protocols. See New Ways website for further details http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/4536.html

The inpatient and day case indicator covers all acute specialities apart from Obstetric, Psychiatric, Genito Urinary Medicine and Homoeopathy.

Precise definition of the 18 week referral to treatment target will be informed by Better Health Better Care consultation. The definition will cover the scope of services/treatments and any tolerance to be applied to the target.

Evidence Source

The indicator is derived from New Ways waiting times statistics. 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 indicator is a count of the number of patients waiting over 15 weeks for treatment, taken at the end of month.

To allow referral to treatment waiting times statistics to be produced, systems are being developed to link each individual stage of a patients journey from GP referral to the outcome (admission for treatment or discharge). The systems will be in place to monitor referral to treatment times from end 2009.

Baseline and Past Trends

The first waiting times statistics based on New Ways protocols will be published in May 2008.

Currently available statistics do not deduct periods of unavailability from the overall waiting time. However, to provide some context it is worth noting that at end June 2007, there were a total of 17,597 inpatients and day cases waiting over 15 weeks.

Methodology

The New Ways website provides details on how periods of unavailability calculations are carried out www.isdscotland.org/isd/4536.html

Data Ownership and Quality Assurance

The statistics will be National Statistics produced by Information Services Division ( ISD) of NHS National Services Scotland.

Publication of Data

Statistics will be published on the ISD website

www.isdscotland.org. The statistics are updated on a quarterly basis, with January, February and March 2008 statistics due for publication in, May 2008.