From Public Health Scotland‘s Cancelled planned operations Month ending 28 February 2026, published today, the above, and:

There were 25,520 operations planned to take place across NHS Scotland. This is 6.7% higher (+1,595) than the number planned in February 2025 (23,925). Over the course of the last 12 months, from March 2025 to February 2026 (304,044), there was a 6.7% increase (+19,154) compared to the previous 12 months (284,890). This reflects the post-Covid pandemic trend of generally increasing planned operations, although numbers are yet to reach those typical of the pre-pandemic period.

Of all planned operations during February 2026 in NHS Scotland, 842 (3.3%) were cancelled the day before or on the day of treatment by the hospital for clinical reasons, 745 (2.9%) by the patient, 628 (2.5%) by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, and 59 (0.2%) for other reasons. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/cancelled-planned-operations/cancelled-planned-operations-month-ending-28-february-2026/

You can see in the above (dotted line), a steady increase in the number of operations from February 2024, with an increase of 19 154 in the last 12 months.

Also, for years now, the percentage of operations that have had to be postponed by the hospitals due to lack of staff or facilities remains around only 2-3%. This is an astonishing level of efficiency in a complex organisation with more than 100 hospitals, 160 000 staff and carrying out around 300 000 operations every year.

This is never reported.