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(Image: NHSGG&C)<\/p>\nNHS has seen figures half after launching a 10-year recovery plan – but Scotland lags far behind.(Image: NHSGG&C)<\/p>\n
THE number of patients waiting more than 78 weeks for treatment <\/a>in Scotland has rocketed to 38,070 while in England the figure has halved to just 1154.<\/p>\n The shocking statistic means 33 times more people are being forced to endure excruciating long delays north of the Border.<\/p>\n It comes as NHS<\/a> England launches a 10-year recovery plan along with plans for an updated app allowing patients to book appointment and even visit an \u201cAI doctor\u201d.<\/p>\n Dr Zubir Ahmed<\/a>, a surgeon turned Labour<\/a> MP for Glasgow South West, said: \u201cAfter a 20 year career as a surgeon in the NHS \u2013 the majority of it working in Govan \u2013 I have seen the Scottish NHS at its best and now at its worst.<\/p>\n \u201cScotland\u2019s NHS<\/a> has seen the 31-day and 62-day cancer waiting times standards missed, 860,000 Scots are stuck on NHS waiting lists for tests with a third considering private treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the words of the esteemed chair of the BMA Dr Iain Kennedy, \u2018the figures show that the NHS is dying before our very eyes\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NHS is dying despite more staff working ever harder and more money being spent on it than ever before.<\/p>\n \u201cThe frustrating part for me as someone who has worked in the NHS all my adult life is the solutions to these challenges lie within the NHS but in Scotland, we don\u2019t have a government<\/a> that has the desire or will to change direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahmed<\/a> has called for a greater use of technology to help drive up performance.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThe UK Labour government will deliver a single patient digital health record controlled by the patient and accessible to any health professional that you want to see it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be neighbourhood health centres with advanced diagnostics capability open 12 hours a day, six days a week.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 10-year plan would mean an NHS in your pocket with a turbocharged NHS app to book and check appointments, interact with specialists who care for you and an AI enabled doctor next to you.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile being able to contribute to this revolution excites me, it frustrates me too because, in the Scottish NHS, we remain on a different path of managed decline.<\/p>\n \u201cWe continue to churn analogue solutions for a digital age, burden staff with more administration and keep patients more and more at arm\u2019s length from their own healthcare information.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no Scottish NHS<\/a> app, no proper workforce plan and no strategy on how to embrace technology and no desire to learn the lessons how to do it better from other parts of the country. \u201c<\/p>\n Scottish Labour Health spokesperson Jackie Baillie added: \u201cScotland\u2019s NHS is fighting for survival but the SNP is flat out of ideas. Elsewhere in the UK, people will benefit from falling NHS waiting lists, a cutting-edge NHS app and a comprehensive recovery plan.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the SNP was capable of fixing the crisis in our NHS, it would have done it by now. Our NHS might not survive a third decade of SNP government<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/166519130_124434446359762_1229410445573993710_n.jpg\")
Surgeon-turned-MP Zubir Ahmed(Image: Collect)<\/p>\n