NHS waiting times - stage of treatment
Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients

About this release

This quarterly release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) relates to the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. These latest statistics up to 30 June 2025 cover all patients waiting for an appointment or procedure as well as those seen and removed from a waiting list covered by the national standards. Individual patients are counted more than once if they are waiting to attend more than one scheduled hospital appointment or admission, so the official statistics shown here do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved. These statistics are however supplemented with an estimate on the number of individuals waiting.

Infographic of an overview of latest statistics on waiting list activity for NHSScotland from June 2024 to June 2025 for key indicators including attendances/ admissions, ongoing waits and waits over 52 weeks for new outpatients and inpatients and day cases.

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Overview of latest statistics on waiting list activity, NHSScotland, up to 30 June 2025

Main points

• There was estimated to be 639,579 individuals on at least one new outpatient, inpatient or day case waiting list at 30 June 2025. This equates to 1 in 9 of Scotland’s population (mid-2024 population estimates Scotland).

New outpatient appointments

• During the quarter ending June 2025, 322,874 new outpatient waits were completed when the patient involved was seen at their outpatient clinic. This represents a marginal increase of 12 from the previous quarter and by 9,343 (+3%) compared to the same quarter last year.
• Of these waits, 208,597 (64.6%) were completed in 12 weeks or less, an increase of 10,765 from the previous quarter and a rise in percentage from 61.3%.
• At 30 June 2025, there were 570,498 waits that were still ongoing, an increase of 2% (+11,348) compared to the end of the previous quarter and 1.5% higher than at the end of June 2024.
• The number of long waits has been on an upward trajectory for two years. At 30 June 2025, there were 67,095 waits that had been ongoing for over one year, an increase of 8,329 (+14.2%) compared to 30 June 2024. Of these, 7,125 waits had exceeded two years, up by 5,077 over the same period.

Inpatient or day case admissions

• During the quarter ending June 2025, 64,938 patient waits covered by the Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) ended when the patient involved was admitted for their intended treatment. This represents a marginal increase of 101 (0.2%) from the previous quarter. Compared to the same period in 2024, the number of admissions decreased marginally by 222 (-0.3%).
• Of these waits, 37,010 were completed in 12 weeks or less, up from 36,784 in the previous quarter. This figure amounts to 57% of all completed waits this quarter, a marginal increase proportionally from quarter ending 31 March 2025 (56.7%).
• At 30 June 2025 there were 158,211 waits for treatment that were still ongoing, a decrease of 0.6% (-901) compared to the end of the previous quarter but 1.2% higher than at the end of June 2024.
• At 30 June 2025, there were 36,694 waits that had been ongoing for over one year, a decrease of 1,002 from the same date last year and by 1,820 from the position at 31 March 2025. Waits over one year account for 23.2% of the overall list size. Of these, 7,838 had been ongoing over 2 years and 1,440 over three years.

Background

The waiting times section of the website provides further information relating to the supply, quality assurance and reporting of waits, as well as links to the latest national guidance set by the Scottish Government.

Further information

Open data from this publication is available from the Scottish Health and Social Care Open Data platform.

Further to engagement with key stakeholders including the Scottish Government and NHS boards, as well as discussion with the Office for Statistics Regulation, PHS will be increasing the frequency of this publication from quarterly to monthly. Given the heightened public focus on waiting times performance, we believe that more timely release of official statistics will be beneficial for users.

The first release of the monthly publication will be 28 October 2025.

PHS is currently undertaking a review of the statistical publications we produce; all planned care waiting times outputs are being reviewed and this may lead to a change in the content, layout and frequency of future publications. Any substantial changes will be announced ahead of implementation. For more information, please contact us at phs.waitingtimes@phs.scot.