Number of planned NHS operations almost 50,000 less than pre-Covid

Scotland’s NHS carried out almost 50,000 fewer operations over the last year than it did in the 12 months before Covid hit, new figures have shown.

Official data from Public Health Scotland revealed the health service planned to carry out 23,925 operations in February 2025.

This took the total of planned surgeries for the 12 months from March 2024 to February 2025 to 284,890.

This total marked a rise of 1.4% (4,009 operations) on the previous 12 months, Public Health Scotland said.

However, it noted that the total was 14.7% lower – meaning there were 49,188 fewer planned operations – than the 12 months from March 2019 to February 2020, “just prior to when the pandemic began to severely impact service provision”.

Public Health Scotland said that while year or year increases in the number of planned operations was still being observed, it added that “the rate of growth has slowed”.

Data revealed 8.1% of operations planned for February were cancelled the day before – with this the case for 1,928 surgeries.

However the proportion of procedures cancelled at short notice was lower than both February 2024, when it was 8.7% and February 2019, when it was 8.9%.

February’s figures showed that 707 operations (3%) were cancelled for clinical reasons, with 731 procedures (3.1%) cancelled by the patient.

A total of 420 operations (1.8%) did not go ahead because of a lack of capacity or other non-clinical reasons, with 70 (0.3%) cancelled for other reasons.

The Scottish Government has been contacted for comment.