Cancelled planned operations
Month Ending 30 June 2025

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides a monthly update on the number of operations in NHSScotland that were cancelled the day before or on the day of treatment. Cancellation reasons are grouped into cancelled by the hospital for clinical reasons, cancelled by the patient, cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, cancelled for other reasons and cancelled for unknown reason.

Please note, an error was identified within the Cancellation data file tab 'Publication Table %', affecting the percentage figures for "other" and "unknown" cancellation reasons in publication files from July 2024 to May 2025.  It has been corrected from publication month ending June 2025. This issue does not affect NHS Scotland level percentage figures. The accompanying publication reports and open data files are not affected.

Main points

As at 30 June:

• There were 24,834 operations planned to take place across NHSScotland. This is 7.7% higher (+1,783) than the number planned a year previously in June 2024 (23,051). Overall, the number of planned operations had been steadily increasing since the COVID-19 pandemic impacted service provision, until April 2024 when increases in the 12-month rolling average began to plateau. In the latest 12 months, from July 2024 to June 2025, there was a 1.6% increase (+4,651) in the number of planned operations (288,121) compared to the previous 12 months (283,470). This remains 13.8% lower (-45,999) than those planned to take place in the 12 months from July 2018 to June 2019 (334,120), prior to when the pandemic began to severely impact service provision. While a year-on-year increase is still being observed, the rate of growth has slowed.
• 8.7% (2,158) of planned operations were cancelled the day before or on the day the patient was due to be treated in NHSScotland. This is a higher rate than the one reported during June 2024 (8%; 1,847) and the same rate reported during June 2019 (8.7%; 2,333) which is the last June comparison time point before COVID-19 began to impact service provision. Across NHS boards, the percentage of cancelled planned operations ranged from 4.9% to 13.0% in this month.
• Of all planned operations during June 2025 in NHSScotland, 757 (3%) were cancelled by the hospital for clinical reasons, 734 (3%) were cancelled by the patient, 589 (2.4%) were cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, and 78 (0.3%) were cancelled for other reasons.

A trend chart showing NHSScotland level data for total planned operations and percentage of cancelled planned operations, by reason, from May 2022 up to June 2025. The blue shaded area represents the total number of planned operations in each month across the time period. Each of the coloured lines represent the percentage of planned operations cancelled for each reason: the line with the highest percentage in the current month denotes those cancelled for clinical reasons; the next highest is those cancelled by patient; the third highest percentage on the graph is operations cancelled for non-clinical or capacity reasons, and finally, the lowest percentage in the current month is for cancellations for other reasons. The dotted line at the top of the graph since June 2022 shows the 12-monthly rolling average of all planned operations. The monthly figures over the time period have fluctuated for various reasons including seasonality and the number of working days in a month affecting number of planned operations and cancellation reasons. However, the 12-monthly rolling average for total number of planned operations has continued to increase although growth has slowed since approximately April 2024.

Close

NHSScotland total planned operations and percentage of cancelled planned operations by reason to June 2025

Please note that fluctuation in the trend in the monthly number of planned operations will be caused partly by variation in the number of working days per month, i.e. weekdays excluding public holidays, as theatre capacity tends to be lower at weekends and on public holidays.

Background

These statistics are released monthly. Data for this publication are submitted from NHS board theatre systems. Further information on the reasons for cancellation can be found on the Cancelled Planned Operations section of our website.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 2 September 2025.

PHS is currently undertaking a review of the statistical publications we produce; all planned care waiting times outputs are being reviewed and this may lead to a change in the content, layout and frequency of future publications. Any substantial changes will be announced ahead of implementation. For more information, please contact us at phs.waitingtimes@phs.scot.