Scottish NHS patients forced to wait years for diagnostic tests

Patients in Scotland are being forced to wait years to undergo routine tests, it was disclosed on Monday, amid growing calls for Nicola Sturgeon to sack her “failing” Health Secretary.

The Scottish Tories obtained official figures under the Freedom of Information Act showing a patient in the NHS Grampian board area was forced to wait 258 weeks - almost five years - for a CT scan.

Another patient in the same area had to wait 255 weeks for an MRI scan, while a third NHS Grampian resident waited 107 weeks for a non-obstetric ultrasound, the longest wait for that kind of diagnostic test.

Elsewhere, in NHS Tayside, a patient waited almost 200 weeks for an upper endoscopy and another patient in that health board also waited over 150 weeks to undergo a colonoscopy.

The figures also disclosed that a patient in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde waited 187 weeks for a lower endoscopy and another waited 145 weeks for a cystoscopy.

NHS 'fighting for survival'

Dr Sandesh Gulhane, a GP and the Scottish Tories’ Shadow Health Secretary, said the figures disclosed a “ticking time bomb” in Scotland’s NHS and the “scarcely believable” waits were putting patients’ lives at risk.

He said Humza Yousaf’s troubled tenure as Scottish Health Secretary “has been a disaster for suffering patients and over-stretched staff” and called for him to be sacked.

Marking 600 days since Ms Sturgeon appointed Mr Yousaf to the role, Labour said he had been given the task of ensuring the NHS recovered from Covid but it was instead now “fighting for survival”.

Ms Sturgeon, Mr Yousaf and Sir Gregor Smith, Scotland’s chief medical officer, will on Monday hold a second weekly media briefing on the crisis gripping the NHS.

Medics estimate that 60 patients a week are dying needlessly in Scotland after being forced to wait too long for help at overwhelmed accident and emergency departments.

While Ms Sturgeon has repeatedly blamed Covid for the crisis, fewer people attended A&E in the first week of this year than in the same week in the years before the pandemic.

Lailah Peel, deputy chairwoman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Scotland, argued the real problem was “not the number of people turning up” but the delayed discharge of hospital patients well enough to leave but could not as they lacked a social care place.

Ms Sturgeon used last week’s press briefing to announce measures to ease the crisis, including funding more care home beds to free up hospital capacity, but doctors said they were “unlikely” to be enough to stop the harrowing situation.

'Deeply concerning issues'

Unveiling the test waiting times figures, Dr Gulhane admitted they were the “most extreme” cases but argued there was a “general trend” of more patients facing longer delays for help.

He said: “It is scarcely believable that certain patients have been waiting almost five years for one of these tests. These deeply concerning issues are not confined to one health board either, the lengthy delays are occurring right across Scotland.

“Frankly there is a ticking time bomb within our NHS. Lives are literally on the line, especially if patients have been waiting years to be seen. The number of patients waiting on a key diagnostic test has now soared past 150,000 under the stewardship of Humza Yousaf.”

With NHS vacancies at record levels, he said poor workforce planning by successive SNP health secretaries was “coming home to roost” and “the buck stops with Humza Yousaf”.

Labour said the Health Secretary had set “a litany of grim new records” during his 600 days in office, with the NHS now enduring the toughest winter in its history.

These included a 30.6 percentage point fall in the proportion of A&E patients being seen within the target four hours, a 27.6 per cent increase in NHS waiting lists and a 9.4 percentage point fall in performance against cancer waiting time targets.

Calls for Yousaf to be sacked

In addition, Labour said there had been a 66.7 per cent rise in delayed discharges and a 29.3 per cent increase in workforce vacancies during Mr Yousaf’s tenure.

Calling for him to be sacked, Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s health spokesman, said: “Humza Yousaf’s record-breaking failure has left our NHS fighting for its life.

“After 600 days in the job we have been left with a string of grim new records and the worst winter in NHS history. Things are getting worse, not better.”

Mr Yousaf said: “We are determined to clear the backlog of planned care appointments caused by the pandemic and have set ambitious targets to ensure patients waiting too long are seen more quickly.

“Health Boards have developed plans to increase capacity, workforce and activity. Six mobile MRI and five mobile CT scanners will help people get the diagnostic tests they need and additional activity throughout the week including weekends, such as weekend endoscopy sessions, will help reduce diagnostic waits.”