Cancelled planned operations
Month ending 31 December 2025

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides a monthly update on the number of operations in NHS Scotland 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. For further information on these definitions, view the Metadata document.

Main points

During December 2025:

• There were 24,441 operations planned to take place across NHS Scotland. This is 10.7% higher (+2,368) than the number planned in December 2024 (22,073). The number of planned operations increased gradually since COVID-19 affected services up to June 2023, followed by a two-year period of stability, and then showed signs of increasing again from around May 2025 onwards. In the latest 12 months, from January 2025 to December 2025 (300,614), there was a 5.5% increase (+15,649) compared to the previous 12 months (284,965). This is still 10.1% lower (-33,949) than the number of operations planned to take place between January 2019 and December 2019 (334,563).
• In NHS Scotland, 9.4% (2,298) of planned operations were cancelled the day before or on the day the patient was due to be treated. This is a similar rate (-0.1%) to a year previously in December 2024 (9.5%; 2,103), and lower than December 2019 (10.1%; 2,582). Across NHS boards, the percentage ranged from 5.6% to 12.9% in the most recent month.
• Of all planned operations during December 2025 in NHS Scotland, 844 (3.5%) were cancelled the day before or on the day of treatment by the hospital for clinical reasons, 830 (3.4%) by the patient, 545 (2.2%) by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, and 79 (0.3%) for other reasons.

A trend chart showing NHSScotland level data for total planned operations and percentage of cancelled planned operations, by reason, from December 2022 up to December 2025. The blue line represents the total number of planned operations in each month across the time period. The dotted black line at the top of the graph since December 2022 shows the 12-monthly rolling average of all planned operations. The second dotted line below shows the 12 month rolling average for cancelled operations by percentage. Each of the coloured bars represent the percentage of total planned operations cancelled for each reason: the lowest bar denotes those cancelled for clinical reasons; the next highest is those cancelled for non clinical/capacity reasons; the next highest is those cancelled by patient; the next highest percentage on the graph is operations cancelled for other reasons, and finally, the highest is for cancellations for unknown reasons. 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, despite a plateau between April 2024 and April 2025.

Close

NHS Scotland total planned operations and percentage of cancelled planned operations by reason to December 2025

Please note that fluctuation in the trend of planned operations is affected 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. In this instance, the typically lower levels of planned activity in the month of December due to the festive period are reflected in the statistics above.

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 3 March 2026.

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