Caithness CWS - Front Page Bulletins - February 2004

Rob Gibson MSP Hits Out At Long Patient Waiting Times In Highland 15 February 04
SNP MSP Rob Gibson for the Highlands and Islands has reacted angrily to provisional patient waiting time figures that show that patients in the Highlands and Islands have to wait over a month more than the average to be seen. The figures were revealed by Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm after a question by SNP MSP Linda Fabiani.

The figures for Highland shows that Outpatients/first appointments have to wait on average 72 days to be seen (the average for the region should be 43 days). Inpatients/day cases (for Highland) have to wait 75 days (average 40 days).

Mr Gibson said...."These figures make for grim reading and are a sad indictment of the Scottish Executives health policy. It is clear that all over Scotland patients are suffering at the hands of inadequate provision and especially in the Highlands."

He added..."Waiting lists will only rise if the Scottish Executive pushes ahead with its centralisation programme of health services."

"This is a situation that no one wants and there must be a concerted effort by everyone to try and reduce the lists and that can only be done by listening to those in the front line.."

The Question At Scottish Parliament
S2W-5778 - Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP) : To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-4805 by Malcolm Chisholm on 19 January 2004, whether it will publish the data for each NHS board and whether it will publish the mean values for each board in each future release of waiting list statistics.

Answered by Malcolm Chisholm (10 February 2004): The following table shows for each NHS board the equivalent figures given in answer to S2W-4805. ISD Scotland have no plans to publish arithmetic mean values for each board for the reason given earlier in the answer to S2W-4812.

First Outpatient Appointments Inpatients/Day Cases

	First Outpatient Appointments			Inpatients/Day Cases
	Median Wait (days)	Mean Wait (days)	Difference	Median Wait (days)	Mean Wait (days)	Difference
NHS Scotland	54	86.9	-32.9	41	80.4	-39.4
Argyll and Clyde	52	79.4	-27.4	32	70.9	-38.9
Ayrshire and Arran	50	76.3	-26.3	48	82.9	-34.9
Borders	47	74.5	-27.5	35	70.1	-35.1
Dumfries and Galloway	54	74.3	-20.3	49	85.4	-36.4
Fife	66	89.3	-23.3	45	91.7	-46.7
Forth Valley	64	110.5	-46.5	49	90.8	-41.8
Grampian	55	86.6	-31.6	35	68.5	-33.5
Greater Glasgow	55	90.5	-35.5	34	74.9	-40.9
Highland	43	75.2	-32.2	40	75.5	-35.5
Lanarkshire	62	99.8	-37.8	50	86.6	-36.6
Lothian	49	82.9	-33.9	42	87.6	-45.6
Orkney Islands	23	37.5	-14.5	21	44.5	-23.5
Shetland Islands	46	58.3	-12.3	36	59.2	-23.2
Tayside	52	82.7	-30.7	43	83.2	-40.2
Western Isles	36	47.8	-11.8	45	72.9	-27.9

Notes:
1. Information relates to the quarter ending 30 September 2002 and should be considered provisional.
2. In-patient /Day case data is sourced from the SMR01 dataset. Outpatient data is sourced from the SMR00 dataset, and covers referrals from a GMP/GDP to a consultant led outpatient clinic.
3. 'Median wait' means the average wait

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/search_wa

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