Debate: Treatment Time Guarantee

That the Parliament notes that the Scottish Government’s legally-binding 12-week treatment time guarantee has been broken at least 190,000 times since its introduction; notes that it is currently being missed by the largest ever margin, approximately 200 times a day; understands that the Scottish Government currently plans to stop breaching its own law by 2021, a full decade after the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011, which established it; is concerned that there is no effective redress for patients or penalty for the Scottish Government in the event that it is breached; believes therefore that every patient who is subject to the treatment time guarantee should be given a realistic estimate of their waiting time from the outset, and calls for every patient for whom the 12-week legally binding guarantee is missed to be sent a letter by the health secretary apologising for the Scottish Government’s failure to abide by its law and providing details of how many times the 12-week target has been missed to date.