Response to The Herald on activity and waiting times
The following response was issued to The Herald on Wednesday 18 December 2024.
NHS Golden Jubilee is committed to enhancing patient care and reducing waiting times across Scotland.
Waiting Times
NHS Golden Jubilee carried out 674 more general surgery procedures in 2023/2024 compared to 2022/2023.
Following referral, our current average waiting times are:
- 6 weeks for general surgery
- 8 weeks for foot and ankle surgery
- 10 weeks for cataract surgery
- 13 weeks for hip and knee replacement surgery
Referrals
Referral rates from NHS Boards naturally fluctuate month to month based on patient availability and readiness for surgery.
NHS Golden Jubilee consistently meets the annual procedure numbers agreed with Boards, ensuring that we effectively support them in delivering high-quality care to patients. Our team remains dedicated to working collaboratively with our partners to address demand and deliver on our shared goals for improved health outcomes. For our planned care services, we performed an additional 2,626 procedures in 2023/24 compared to 2022/2023.
The Scottish Government has agreed a new funding model for 2025/2026 that will directly fund activity.
Activity
Board allocations are planned to support planned care delivery in referring boards and change year on year based on a variety of factors. Allocations involve a mix of complex and day case/short stay procedures – annual activity numbers at Golden Jubilee will be influenced by this agreed case mix.
In agreement with the Boards, some procedures are swapped out for others during the year to ensure our theatres are working at full capacity. This means we will have higher activity in some months than others, but our year-end figures may not change.
NHS Golden Jubilee carried out a total of 82,869 inpatient, day case and diagnostic procedures in 2023/2024 and anticipate that this will increase to over 100,000 by 31 March 2025.
Cancellations
Situations occasionally arise that result in operations being cancelled, such as the need to prioritise emergency/urgent cases, staffing pressures/illness, and the impact of external factors such as adverse weather.
NHS Golden Jubilee’s Central Sterilising and Processing Department (CSPD) recently experienced an unexpected malfunction that temporarily affected the supply of sterilised kits and trays used in patient care. This meant a small number of planned surgeries had to be cancelled to ensure that critical and life-saving procedures continued as scheduled without interruption.
Official statistics from Public Health Scotland show our average Hospital cancellation rate from August to October 2024 was 3.3 per cent with an additional 2.3 per cent cancelled at the request of patients (total 5.6 per cent). This compares to 3.3 per cent and 2.7 per cent for August to October 2023 (total 6.0 per cent).
|
Cancellation type |
Aug-Oct 2023 |
Aug-Oct 2024 |
|
Total scheduled elective cancellations in theatre systems |
6.0% |
5.6% |
|
Cancellation based on clinical reason by hospital |
2.4% |
2.1% |
|
Cancellation based on capacity or non-clinical reason by hospital |
0.9% |
1.2% |
|
Cancelled by patient |
2.7% |
2.3% |
|
Other reason |
0.0% |
0.0% |
