Are one in six Scots waiting for NHS care?

Scottish Labour, its leader Anas Sarwar and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have been claiming that one in six Scots are on an NHS waiting list—but the most recent official data available puts the figure at around one in nine.

Most recently, criticising the SNP’s record in government, Scottish Labour’s constitution spokesman Neil Bibby said that “one in six Scots is on an NHS waiting list” (11 October). Mr Sarwar made the claim back in May.

The Daily Record also appeared to repeat the claim at face value (13 October), saying one in six people in Scotland were “stuck on some form of NHS waiting list”. And The Scotsman columnist and Labour MSP Jackie Baillie (15 October) also used the one in six figure, and referred to those on the waiting list as being “in pain”.

Yet the latest figures from Public Health Scotland estimated there were 618,477 individual people on an NHS waiting list as of 31 October 2025.

That’s 11.15% of Scotland’s mid-2024 population (5,546,900)—closer to one in nine.

It’s true that Public Health Scotland’s count is incomplete, but it is the most reliable number we have.

Is Public Health Scotland undercounting?

Scottish Labour argues that both its own estimate and Public Health Scotland’s were likely coming up short on the true figure. Neither count includes patients waiting for mental health outpatient treatment, or people waiting for appointments at allied health professionals-led clinics for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, chiropody/podiatry and orthotics services.

This is a reasonable point to make. Public Health Scotland’s data only includes patients awaiting new outpatient, inpatient or day cases, and doesn’t include any data on the eight key diagnostic tests, adult and child mental health services, and gender identity clinics.

This is because the data for these waiting lists are aggregated—meaning they’re formatted at too high a level to count individual people across more than one list.

Waiting list data for appointments with allied health professionals is published separately. Waiting list data for return outpatient appointments isn’t collected at all due to “system limitations” and workload.

So there’s no official figure estimating all of the patients waiting on the various lists that Scottish Labour has named. And there’s no real way for us to guess at a true figure that considers every waiting list.

Simply put: Public Health Scotland’s estimate is the best we have that avoids double counting.

Full Fact has sent Scottish Labour’s methodology to Public Health Scotland, but the body has not responded.

We fact checked similar claims last summer, but the party is continuing to make the claim, and has been all year.