NHS Recovery Plan: annual progress update

Key Progress and Achievements

Over the last year, we have continued to find innovative and sustainable solutions to the challenges we face and we have made real progress in our recovery:

By the end of August, over 75% of outpatient specialities had either no, or fewer than ten patients waiting longer than two years for their treatment.

We have invested significantly to increase the NHS Scotland workforce to historically high levels, with staffing up by 8.9% since the onset of the pandemic (December 2019), and by 1.7% in the last year.

Scotland led the rest of the UK on 1st, 2nd, 3rd and booster doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, and delivered one of the most successful vaccination programmes in the world last winter.

By March 2022, we recruited over 3,220 primary care Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) members. Recruitment has continued over the last year, reducing the need for multiple appointments for the same issue, and freeing up time for longer appointments.

Last winter, we provided funding over £40 million to enable employers to provide an uplift to the hourly rate of pay for staff offering Direct Care within Adult Social Care. We have since provided additional funding of £200m to increase the hourly rate of pay to £10.50.

Scotland’s world-leading diagnostic bowel service, Colon Capsule Endoscopy (CCE), has supported nearly 3,000 patients since becoming operational in June 2020, including around 2,500 since April 2021.

Cytosponge, which is used to detect those at risk of oesophageal cancer, as an alternative to upper GI Endoscopy, has supported nearly 4,700 patients overall since its introduction in September 2020, including 3,000 in 21-22.

In November 2020, the National Eye Centre opened at NHS Golden Jubilee. Last year, over 8,700 cataract operations were undertaken at this new state of the art facility.

We have exceeded our target to recruit 800 Mental Health workers supporting us to ensure people have access to appropriate mental health care in a variety of settings, recognising the life-changing benefits of fast, effective treatment.

We have recruited 277 additional GPs (from 2017 to 2021) as part of our commitment to increase numbers by 800 by 2027. This will support GPs and members of the multi-disciplinary team to provide the right care in the right place, closer to home.

NHS Dental Charges for under 26 year olds have been abolished, supporting us to widen access and take a preventative and proactive approach to improving our oral health.

NHS dentistry is averaging 225,000 examination appointments per month since April to tackle the backlog of appointments – an increase of 80% in examination appointments per month on average compared with the period of January to March 2022

We have increased baseline intensive care (ICU) capacity to above 200, bolstering overall resilience and capacity in acute care.