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Table 1 presents the latest available statistics on the total waiting list size for patients covered by the Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) and the number of ongoing waits for treatment within an inpatient or day case setting at 31 December 2022, broken down by waiting times of over (a)two years (104 weeks), (b) two years and six months (130 weeks), and (c) three years (156 weeks) for an orthopaedic procedure.

Table 1 - Number of ongoing waits for an inpatient or day case admission for orthopaedics by length of wait in NHS Scotland, at 31 December 2022

NTC Forth Valley will open in summer 2023 at a projected cost of £12.7 million.

NTC Golden Jubilee Phase 2 - will open in winter 2023 at a projected costs of £82.3 million.

The business cases for the remaining National Treatment Centre in NHS Ayrshire & Arran, NHS Grampian, NHS Tayside, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian, including the new Edinburgh Eye Pavilion, are under development and costs/opening dates will be confirmed when final business cases are submitted.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring fund accessibility as part of ongoing implementation. We met with Health Boards in summer 2022 to discuss the implementation of the fund and areas for improvement, including accessibility.

The Scottish Government does not yet have complete YPFF data for the whole period of 2022-23. We expect Health Boards to have provided this data by the end of May 2023.

Further to the answer provided to question S6W-11404 issued on 4 November 2022, I can confirm that all Health Boards now have access to Clinical portals within acute services.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government does not assess clinical diagnostic interventions.

However, non-invasive liver scans, including transient elastography devices such as FibroScan, are recommended by NICE in primary care settings and are currently used in several NHS Boards throughout Scotland to assess liver disease.

Currently, there is limited evidence on the efficacy of these scans in a community care context. Trials to test the expanded use of non-invasive liver scans are ongoing in both primary care and for populations at higher risk of liver disease in community care.

The Scottish Government does not yet have complete YPFF data for the whole period of 2022-23 so we are unable to state the percentage of successful claims across the 12 month period. We expect Health Boards to have provided this data by the end of May 2023.

There is currently no funding allocated for marine litter removal at Arrochar, Loch Long. This work is eligible for funding through Marine Fund Scotland https://www.gov.scot/policies/marine-and-fisheries-grants/ 

Despite ongoing significant pressures, we continue to see progress in reducing long waits following the introduction of targets in July 2022. The latest Public Health Scotland data shows:

• The total number of patients waiting than more two years for a new outpatient appointment was reduced by 60 per cent in six months;
• 18 of 30 inpatient / day-case specialities have fewer than ten patients waiting more than two years
• 61 per cent of new outpatient specialties have fewer than 10 patients waiting over 78 weeks.

We have also progressed significant immediate and long term solutions to support Boards to clear their remaining long waits. In addition to the targets introduced last year, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery is supporting Boards to maximise their capacity and increase theatre efficiencies, including through Active Clinical Referral Treatment and Patient Initiated Review.

Four National Treatment Centres will also open this year, providing significant additional capacity for orthopaedics, ophthalmic and diagnostic treatment. This includes NTC-Fife and NTC-Highland, which opened in March and April respectively, and NTC-Forth Valley and the second phase of the NHS Golden Jubilee which will open later in the year.

The Scottish Government are currently undertaking a programme of work to improve the Community Health Index (CHI) systems. The new CHI is a single national system replacing the existing eight separate CHI systems and is due to go live in late summer 2023.