Posted here yesterday, an accurate reporting of the latest NHS waiting list figures for Scotland and England.

On the same day, across social media, from Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr, this utterly misleading and dishonest claim:

Here’s what the Public Health Scotland report said:

At 30 June 2026, there were an estimated 580,545 individuals on at least one new outpatient, inpatient or day case waiting list. 

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times-new-outpatients-inpatients-and-day-cases-28-july-2026

What have the Cons done to get the ‘Almost 800’ figure?

They’ve ignored this on page 12 of the full report:

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. To avoid overestimating the population affected, the number of ongoing waits for inpatients, day cases, new outpatients and any other service (e.g. diagnostics) should not be added together to determine the proportion of the total population waiting for these types of care.

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/39722/2026-07-28-wt-ipdcop-report.pdf