Chronic pain waiting times
Quarter ending 31 March 2025

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) reports on the number of referrals to a pain management service, the length of time patients waited to be seen at a first outpatient appointment, the number of patients waiting at the end of the quarter and the length of their wait. These services provide chronic pain assessment and management and are delivered by multi-disciplinary teams. Chronic pain is defined as pain that carries on for longer than 12 weeks despite medication or treatment.

Main points

• During the quarter ending 31 March 2025, 5,073 patients were referred to a consultant-led chronic pain clinic, which is similar to both the previous quarter and to a year ago in the quarter ending 31 March 2024. During 2024, an average of 5,140 referrals were made to a chronic pain clinic each quarter. Referrals are similar to the levels seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic when on average 5,197 patients were referred each quarter during 2019.
• During the same quarter, 1,699 patients were seen at a chronic pain clinic. This compares to 1,907 patients in the previous quarter, a decrease of 10.9% and to 2,028 patients seen a year earlier in the quarter ending 31 March 2024, a decrease of 16.2%. During 2024, an average of just under 2,000 patients were seen each quarter which is lower than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when an average of just under 3,000 patients were seen per quarter during 2019. This is largely due to some NHS Boards introducing new pathways that offer some patients alternatives to being seen by a consultant. In these statistics, these patients are considered as no longer waiting once they take up this offer.
• Of those seen at a consultant-led clinic in the latest quarter, 49.3% of patients had waited 12 weeks or less to be seen, compared to an average of 51.8% in 2024 and 50.4% in 2019. The proportion of patients who experienced longer waits has increased. For instance, 13.4% of patients waited 52 weeks or more in the latest quarter, compared to an average of 7.9% in 2024 and 0.3% in 2019.
• On 31 March 2025, 5,612 patients were waiting for their first appointment at a chronic pain clinic. This is an increase of 5.3% compared to 31 December 2024, when there were 5,329 patients waiting and an increase of 13.6% compared to a year ago on 31 March 2024, when there were 4,941 patients waiting. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the waiting list was at the lowest point (2,375 patients at 31 March 2021) and since then, the trend has been generally upwards. The number of patients waiting is now higher than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Of those waiting to be seen at the end of each quarter, the proportion of patients who had been waiting longer for their first appointment has increased. At 31 March 2025, 8.1% of patients had already been waiting 52 weeks or more, compared to an average of 5.4% in 2024 and 0.5% in 2019. Most of these patients were waiting to be treated in NHS Tayside. Staff vacancies and lack of cover for long term absence are reported as the main factors that have contributed to some patients experiencing longer waits.

Trend chart showing data from quarter ending 31 December 2015 to quarter ending 31 March 2025 with bars showing the number of patients waiting per quarter. Each bar is broken down by the length of time patients have been waiting: 12 weeks or less (darker blue bar), 13 - 24 weeks (blue bar), 25 - 51 weeks (paler blue bar), and 52+ weeks (grey bar).

Close

Distribution of wait for patients waiting at a consultant-led Chronic Pain clinic from quarter ending 31 December 2015 to 31 March 2025¹

Note 1: Data for NHS Orkney is unavailable for the quarters ending 31/12/2015 to 31/03/2016.

Background

Further information on chronic pain can be found on the NHS Inform website. The data presented here have been adjusted for periods of patient unavailability. Any adjustments are based on the NHSScotland Waiting Times Guidance. For the NHS Boards who submit data on pain psychology clinics, further detail is available in the data tables and the publication report.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 9 September 2025.