Typically dishonest, gutter-level journalism from the Herald today. Moving the formal maximum target from an unmet 12 weeks to a 26-week aim by 2031 is a relaxation of ambition relative to the old legal standard, but it does not mean the plan is to increase waits to twice what people experience today. For a large number of current long-waiters it would still represent an improvement if achieved.

Like many health service targets, our aging, less active yet more expectant population, living in a world of de-regulated food production and made addicts to hyper-processed non-food by global corporations, cannot be met. If we doubled the NHS spend, we would not clear the ‘backlog.’

We do what we can and, in Scotland, we do better.

Across the BBC and in the Telegraph, the above and:

NHS waiting times will be twice as long as Labour promised by the next election, new analysis shows.

The health service will fail to meet the 18-week waiting target that had been a flagship pledge of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership, a report by the Health Foundation think tank predicts.

Instead, it says, based on the rate of progress in Labour’s first two years in power, patients will still be waiting an average 35 weeks in 2029 – almost twice as long as promised.

The Government will have barely moved the needle on the overall NHS backlog either, with 7.1 million people forecast to still be on a waiting list. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10/08/nhs-wait-times-be-twice-as-long-as-labour-promised-2029/?msockid=040f0c0f8f6f69bb36d418948ed46872

Since the end of 2024, NHS Scotland has moved to a more demanding 12-week target but at that point, it treated 67.6% within 18 weeks¹ while NHS England only treated 59%.²

In March 2026, NHS Scotland treated 59.2% by 12 weeks. However, the trend is an improving one.³

12-week figures are not published by NHS England but can be extracted but from the data files, tucked away, in Consultant-led Referral to Treatment Waiting Times Data 2026-27⁴. There we see the intriguing phrase, not a percentage figure:

50%? Significantly worse than NHS Scotland at 59.2%. NHS Scotland treating 20% more in 12 weeks.

Sources:

1. https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/nhs-waiting-times-18-weeks-referral-to-treatment/nhs-waiting-times-18-weeks-referral-to-treatment-quarter-ending-30-september-2024/
2. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgxqnr8yw4o
3. https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times/stage-of-treatment-waiting-times-new-outpatients-inpatients-and-day-cases-28-april-2026/
4. https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-data-2026-27/