NHS Scotland will receive a £30 million cash injection as the service continues to struggle post-Covid and with chronic understaffing. 

Then first minister Humza Yousaf pledged £100m over three years last October in an effort to cut waiting lists by 100,000.

Now SNP Health Secretary Neil Gray has announced the first £30m tranche will be targeted at areas where wait-times are most acute: cancer care, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, dermatology and diagnostics. 

The SNP Scottish government’s long-term handling of the NHS has recently come under intense scrutiny.

Earlier this year Mr Gray stated he would be happy to consider extending private provision to tackle waiting lists, which have soared to over 840,000 patients, and an A&E crisis which has seen numbers waiting more than four hours quadruple in five years.

Announcing the cash injection, Mr Gray said: “This initial investment of £30m will target reductions to national backlogs that built up through the pandemic.

“Together, our actions will help Scotland’s NHS maximise capacity, build greater resilience and deliver year-on-year reductions in the number of patients who have waited too long for treatment.”