FactCheck: Are Scottish waiting times ahead of targets?
Updated on 18 April 2007
Scottish Labour claims it's a year ahead of Labour's targets for hospital waiting times. Is it right?
The claim
"In February, we reached our guaranteed 18 week maximum waiting times a full year ahead of the target Labour set."
Scottish Labour's Website, 27 February 2007
The background
On a February day in 2005, Tony Blair helicoptered round the country stopping off along the way to unveil his key pledges for the 2005 general election.
It was at Kettering general hospital in Northamptonshire where the prime minister buddied up with the then health secretary John Reid to announce the second of his campaign pledges: "your family treated better and faster".
Blair told his audience that waiting times had fallen under Labour and the goal now was to ensure that, by 2008, no patient should wait longer than 18 weeks from GP referral to the start of treatment. The waiting time target currently stands at 26 weeks.
North of the border, the Scottish Executive is responsible for health and Scottish Labour has made it one of their key priorities in the Holyrood election campaign.
But does their claim about waiting times check out?
The analysis
Scottish Labour bases its achievements on the most recent figures released in February by ISD Scotland, which processes statistics for NHS Scotland.
And, at first glance, they appear to stack up.
The inpatient/day case waiting list census conducted on 31 December 2006 showed that of the 92,793 people waiting for treatment, no one had waited longer than 18 weeks.
Those figures are an improvement on the previous quarter. The census conducted three months earlier on 30 September 2006 showed that of the 100,229 individuals on the list for treatment, 3,365 had waited longer than 18 weeks and 29 had waited more than 26 weeks.
So based on waiting times for inpatients and day cases, Scottish Labour's claim is accurate.
But they omit the statistics for outpatients.
This data shows that of the 232,518 people on the list for outpatient treatment, while no one had waited longer than 26 weeks, 14,244 individuals had waited longer than 18 weeks.
On this basis Scottish Labour cannot claim they have reached their guaranteed 18-week maximum waiting times.
A spokesperson for Scottish Labour defended the party's position, saying that the number of outpatients waiting more than 18 weeks for treatment was at "an all-time record low, with an 81 per cent reduction since September 2004 when records began."
This is all well and good but falls somewhat short of Scottish Labour's claims on its website.
FactCheck rating: 4
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The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largerly checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.
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The verdict
The statistics compiled by ISD Scotland do show that the times patients wait for treatment have fallen steadily.
But, at the last reckoning, there were still outpatients waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment.
Scottish Labour cannot claim that it is has met the 18 week maximum waiting targets for all patients.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats strike a more accurate note in their manifesto, saying: "We are on track to meet 18 week waiting time targets by the end of 2007."
The sources
The Labour Party manifesto 2005, Chapter 4
The Scottish Liberal Democrats Manifesto, Health and Wellbeing
Patient Waiting Times at an All Time Low, Scottish Executive News Release
List of Waiting Times Tables, ISD Scotland
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