An NHS Tayside patient’s seven-month wait to see a specialist about a potentially severe stomach illness has been slammed as “unacceptable” by Scotland’s Health Secretary.
Dundee-based Labour MSP Jenny Marra raised questions with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon over a constituent’s severely delayed referral the full extent of which was only revealed after a 12-week wait to see a gastroenterology specialist.
The woman was originally told she would be seen within three months before eventually having the full scale of the wait revealed to her.
In the meantime, she could have potentially been suffering from illnesses such as Crohn’s disease without diagnosis or treatment.
A specialist Government team has now been sent in by ministers to sort out the problem.
Ms Marra said: “Only when the 12 weeks were up did NHS Tayside tell her that its waiting time for routine referral was actually 28 weeks, or seven months.
“Does the First Minister think that patients should be told the real waiting time when they are first referred?
“Does she think that a seven-month wait is acceptable? What is she doing to reduce waiting times?”
Ms Sturgeon said the health board had “experienced a high turnover of staff in the speciality” and is recruiting an additional consultant and an endoscopy nurse.
She added: “The board continues, as it should do, to consider other ways to reduce unacceptably long waits for an appointment to the speciality, and the Government’s access support team is monitoring performance in the area.”
Health Secretary and Dundee City East MSP Shona Robison told The Courier NHS Tayside is now “working hard” to fix the problems.
She said: “We have made it clear to NHS Tayside that waits of this length are unacceptable. It’s important they take action to get fully staffed up so we can get waits down.
“We have got the access support team, which monitors performance and works with boards to reduce long waits. They are in there to help them with that.”
A spokeswoman for NHS Tayside said, “We are working to reduce waiting times for routine referrals to our gastroenterology service.
“A number of factors, including the need for more intensive follow-up for patients commenced on new treatments, a change in the seniority of the doctors in training who support the service and a resignation of a speciality doctor, have resulted in there being less capacity available to see patients referred to the service.
“We are committed to improving access to gastroenterology services in line with National Waiting Time Guarantees and are currently recruiting an additional consultant and a nurse endoscopist.
“Waiting times for urgent referrals for suspicion of cancer is two weeks and for all other urgent referrals it is four to six weeks.”