NHS Tayside Planned Care Waiting Times

Our teams are working hard to make sure patients get the treatment they need as quickly as possible. Those patients who need care most are being prioritised, but our teams are doing everything they can to improve treatment times for everyone who is waiting.

We know that as a result of the pandemic, some patients are waiting longer for outpatient appointments and their routine operations and procedures than we would like.

Patients who are waiting have told us that it would be better for them if they could see the most up-to-date information about waiting times for planned elective appointments or procedures. We agree that this is important for patients and their families and therefore we have developed this site which shows how long patients have recently waited to be seen in NHS Tayside.

We have broken this down into two separate information tables:

1. How many weeks people are waiting for an appointment at an outpatient clinic for the first time
2. How many weeks people are waiting for their operation or procedure under the Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) as an inpatient or a day case patient

This is based on the number of weeks that nine out of 10 patients have waited to be seen in the last three months for each specialty area. This gives the best estimate of how long most people are waiting.

The tables have been broken down into patients who had been assessed by their clinical team as an urgent priority (does not include referrals where there is a suspicion of cancer) and those who had been clinically assessed as a routine priority.

This information can be used as a guide to determine how long patients may wait to be seen after they have been added to the waiting list. However, it is important to remember that every patient is different and waiting times can be affected by a number of factors. This means some patients will be seen earlier and some a bit later than the wait in the tables.

If there is no waiting time shown in the table, this is because there have been fewer than 20 patients seen in the last three months and so the waiting time cannot be accurately calculated.
 
This information will be updated monthly.

Waiting Times Information at Specialty Level

If you are waiting for an outpatient appointment and need to inform us about any changes to your contact details or periods where you may be unavailable to attend, please contact the NHS Tayside Appointments Office at Tay.appointmentenquiries@nhs.scot

If you are waiting to undergo an elective (planned) surgical procedure either as an inpatient or as a day case and need to inform us about any changes to your contact details or periods where you may be unavailable to attend, please contact the clinical department using the contact details contained within the correspondence received. Alternatively, please contact NHS Tayside (01382 660111) and ask for the clinical speciality for which you are waiting.

It's important that you try to keep yourself as fit and healthy as possible while you wait for your treatment. This will give you the best chance of a good recovery afterwards.

NHS Inform has information and advice to support you to keep well whilst waiting for your treatment, please visit the following pages on NHS Inform:

• Support for people waiting on hip and knee replacements
• Further information on keeping well

For further information on how Waiting Times work within NHS Scotland and your rights and responsibilities as a patient please visit NHS Inform.