92-week wait for NHS eye op as elderly cataract patients forced to get private surgery

24.01.2022 - 08:15 / dailyrecord.co.uk

Patients waiting for cataract operations are facing waits of 92 weeks.

That means someone told today they need the operation would not get it before October 30, 2023.

Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “This is outrageous and is clear evidence of the SNP’s failure to re-mobilise our NHS.

“Thousands of Scots are stuck waiting for medical treatment due to the neglect that this government has shown the NHS over the last 15 years.

“These lengthy waiting times are unacceptable and could lead to poorer patient outcomes.

“The Health Secretary must act now to protect the health of the people of Scotland before they are forced into the arms of the private sector.”

The time from the ­decision to treat a patient until treatment begins should not exceed 12 weeks but even before the Covid pandemic, this was regularly breached in most specialities.

Glasgow gran Jane Mackinnon is one of those on the growing cataract list in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde but when she was given a treatment time guarantee, the letter had a disclaimer.

It said: “The service currently does not have the capacity to meet the 12-week guarantee target for every patient, which is disappointing.”

Gran Jane Mackinnon first heard of the waits from her friend.

Jane, 75, of Netherlee, Glasgow, said: “Her optician had told her it would be a wait of 92 weeks.

“I phoned my own optician, Specsavers, and they verified what she had told me.”

She phoned the New Victoria Hospital where she is due to have her op and spoke to the consultant’s secretary.

Jane said: “She said I would be waiting, ‘months and months and months and months’. Some people had been waiting 50 weeks or more.”

Jane can’t drive because of cataracts and now faces paying £2000 for a private op.

An NHS Greater