Raigmore Hospital in Inverness is the main general hospital in the region.<\/p>\n
NHS Highland has missed 15 of 23 key performance indicators including crucial targets for the 62-day cancer treatment <\/a>start time, A&E 12-hour waits <\/a>and delayed discharges.<\/a><\/p>\n The Integrated Performance and Quality Report delivered at this week\u2019s board meeting revealed 65 per cent of targets were being missed by margins of between less than five per cent to over 10 per cent.<\/p>\n The state of the NHS was perhaps the biggest issue of the Holyrood elections which returned a minority SNP government.<\/p>\n The new report highlighted performance in areas related to the Scottish Government\u2019s Operational Improvement Plan (OIP) \u2013 the SNP\u2019s proposed solution to the healthcare crisis.<\/p>\n The OIP\u2019s objective is to renew the NHS by shifting \u201cthe balance of care from acute services to the community, and use digital and technological innovation to improve access to care.\u201d<\/p>\n The performance indicators are divided into four categories: red \u2013 over 10 per cent off target; yellow \u2013 more than five per cent off target; green \u2013 under five per cent off target; and blue \u2013 meeting the target.<\/p>\n Missed targets<\/p>\n The 31-day target for cancer treatment stood at 89.7 per cent while the 62-day target for treatment was 67.3 per cent and so missed the 95 per cent national standard and were in the yellow and red zones respectively.<\/p>\n That was put down to delays on MRI testing and reports due to a lack of staff and machine capacity for prostate cancer while colorectal cancer saw a four-week wait for an endoscopy and waiting times to get a scan and breast cancer was impacted by the waiting time for assessment and diagnostic service.<\/p>\n Delayed discharges, both for all cases and what the health board calls \u201cstandard\u201d cases, were in the red zone after a March census found there were a total of 232 delays. That was described as \u201chigher than the improvement trajectory due to sustained pressures in social care\u201d.<\/p>\n The Neurodevelopmental Assessment Service waiting list grew to 2197 patients with just 138 patients getting a first appointment within the 18-week target time.<\/p>\n For the rest 343 would wait up to a year; 547 for one and two years; 579 for more than two to three years; 365 for three to four years; 169 for four to five years; and 56 could expect to wait for more than five years for a first appointment.<\/p>\n This was put down to “extremely limited clinical capacity to complete assessments\u201d.<\/p>\n The smoking cessation service recorded 62 quits in quarter two of 2025\/26, falling short of the local target of 84 per quarter, while data collection issues in community pharmacies and \u201chigh smoking rates in young pregnant women\u201d were described as \u201cprimary challenges\u201d.<\/p>\nA queue of ambulances outside Raigmore. Picture: James Mackenzie<\/p>\n