NICOLA Sturgeon has insisted her Government’s £850 million waiting times action plan is not failing – despite recent figures showing NHS performance against targets has hit a record low.

The Scottish Government’s treatment time guarantee – which promises inpatient or day case treatment within 12 weeks – was met for just over two-thirds (68.4%) of patients in the first three months of the year. That was down from 72.9% in the last three months of 2018 and the lowest level since the guarantee was introduced in October 2012.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson claimed the standard had now been breached 212,867 times. Accusing the Scottish Government of putting independence before the NHS, she said: “That is 212,000 broken promises to patients from a government that puts the NHS second behind its own priorities.”

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Davidson raised the issue at First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, claiming figures showed “another 23,000 patients missed the so-called 12-week guarantee for treatment in Scotland in the three months up to March”.

Davidson said: “That is an utter disgrace. Indeed, under the current Health Secretary [Jeane Freeman], the number of patients being seen within that alleged guaranteed time has fallen from 74% to just 68%.”

The Government’s £850m waiting times action plan aims to have the treatment time guarantee met for 75% of patients by October. The First Minister said her Health Secretary is “getting on with the job of delivering for patients”, as she stressed ministers are “determined” to meet the waiting times targets.

Sturgeon pointed to an 8.5% drop in the number of ongoing waits over 12 weeks on the last quarter, adding the total number of new patients with waits over 12 weeks had been reduced by almost 16%.

Davidson responded: “The First Minister is conveniently forgetting the failure to meet the 18-week referral target, the one in five patients that are waiting too long for psychological therapy, the fewer than half of patients who are getting musculoskeletal services within four weeks, that almost a fifth of patients with urgent cancer referrals are waiting more than two months.”

The First Minister said “real progress is being made by this Government” in tackling waiting times. She told MSPs: “The plan is not failing, and anybody who understands how the health service operates and the integrated nature of it would understand that.

“The underlying trend is in the right direction. We are reducing those that are waiting longest. Since we introduced the treatment time guarantee, 1,767,000 have been treated within it, faster treatment than they would be getting otherwise. There has been in the last quarter that 8.5% reduction in the number of ongoing waits over 12 weeks, that is because this Government is investing in the waiting times improvement plan, and we will carry on doing that.”