Waiting Times | Inpatient, Day Case & Outpatient stage of treatment waiting times | Background | Health Topics

Waiting Times

Publication Information:

Information for data providers:

Outpatients GP/GDP - only referrals archive

At 31 March 2010, the national standard for new outpatients changed from 15 weeks for GP/GDP referrals only to 12 weeks for all sources of referral. For clarity, tables for new outpatients have been redeveloped for the National Statistics publication in August 2010 to reflect the new national standard and show information for this revised cohort from 31 March 2010 onwards. The old tables for GP/GDP-only referrals are available archived below. Please note that Tables A1a (old), A1b (old) and B1 (old) will continue to be updated to reflect the latest position in the warehouse and some data quality issues exist within all tables:

	Table Number	Download Available
Summary statistics; Patients referred by a GP/GDP; completed waits for patients seen (up to 31 March 2010) - forms part of A1a (new)	A1a (old)
Summary statistics; Patients referred by a GP/GDP; ongoing waits for patients on waiting list - forms part of A1b (new)	A1b (old)
Distribution of wait; Patients referred by a GP/GDP; completed waits for patients seen - forms part of A1a (new)	B1 (old)
Availability of patients on waiting list for a new outpatient appointment (up to census date 31 December 2009)	C1
New outpatient appointment waiting list activity (up to quarter end 31 December 2009)	D1
Patients referred from sources other than a GP/GDP; completed waits for patients seen	F1
Patients referred from sources other than a GP/GDP; ongoing waits for patients on waiting list	F2
All patients on waiting list for a new outpatient	G1
Episode length for new outpatient appointment; patients referred by a GP/GDP; completed waits for patients seen	J1

Publication review

As part of a review of the National Statistics publication for August 2010, ISD, in consultation with NHS Boards, the Scottish Government and other users of the data, examined the relevance of all content within the publication. It was agreed producing distributions of wait analysis for patients who have not yet been seen was of little relevance statistically. Therefore, these tables have been archived and will not be produced in the future. The tables affected are:

	Table Number	Download Available
Outpatients (also for reasons detailed above in 'Outpatients GP/GDP-only referrals archive'):
Patients referred by a GP/GDP; ongoing waits for patients waiting and available at census date	B2
Patients referred by a GP/GDP; ongoing waits for patients waiting and unavailable at census date	B3
Inpatient and Day Cases:
Ongoing waits for patients waiting and available at census date	B5
Ongoing waits for patients waiting and unavailable at census date	B6

Hip Fracture

The current national standard, in place from 31 December 2007, states that 98% of all hip fracture patients should be operated on within 24 safe operating hours of admission to an orthopaedic unit, subject to medical fitness. Safe operating hours are between 8 am and 8 pm, seven days a week.

Hip fracture patients admitted after 31 December 2008 are no longer audited centrally by the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit. As a result of the hospitals' success in meeting the 98% hip fracture Time to Theatre target, the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit resource has been transferred to an alternative audit of access to musculoskeletal services in 2009. For the immediate future, no centralised data is available to monitor compliance with the Hip Fracture time to theatre target. Work is ongoing to investigate methods of providing comparable data from routine sources. NHS Boards continue to ensure local delivery of this standard.

Time To Surgery Following Hip Fracture

Previous New Ways Publications

The analyses previously published in the August 2010 release of the 'New Ways' web pages, containing historic waiting times data for the quarter to 30 June 2010, are available here. Please note, waiting times figures that were previously published on 31 August 2010, and classed as provisional, have been revised in this release to reflect the latest available update of records held in the national (New Ways) data warehouse (as at 28 October 2010). A description of data quality issues, including revisions made to quarter end 30 September 2010 data, is available here.

Previous New Ways e-Newsletters

ISD produce a quarterly newsletter to provide the latest information from the world of waiting times. The latest newsletter is available on the Waiting Times homepage. Previous newsletters are available below:

Waiting Times E-Newsletter April 2010

Pre-New Ways

Data published prior to the introduction of New Ways (up to period 31 December 2007) is available here.

There are also supporting documents that are of value in aiding interpretation of inpatient/day case waiting list and waiting times trend data and these are as follows:

February 2008 - Notice of Change to National Statistics Download Word file [32kb]

May 2008 - Publication options Download Word file [41kb]

May 2008 - Intention for publication

In addition, please note that the indicators published in these tables are not comparable to published tables prior to may 2008. For more information see the Notice of Statistical Continuity Download Word file [48kb].

Inpatient, Day Case and Outpatient

Historical Data