How does the NHS in Scotland compare with the rest of the UK?

Healthcare will be a key battleground throughout the Scottish election campaign.

The NHS accounts for over a third of Holyrood's budget and is perhaps the most prized public service in voters' minds.

Parties have repeatedly clashed over the way patients experience services, with comparisons frequently made with the NHS elsewhere in the UK. They also invariably pick out the figures which best suit their arguments.

BBC Verify has looked at four key measures to assess whether progress is being made – and whether it is fair to compare Scotland's health service with other UK nations.

Waiting times for non-urgent treatment at hospital can stretch into months and years.

The Scottish government has been trying to cut the longest waits of over 52 weeks, and ministers frequently point to the fact these have been falling month-on-month.

Long waits have fallen for nine months in a row but a target to eradicate them by the end of March was missed, with more than 44,000 waits of over a year still on the system.

This is an area where comparisons are difficult to draw across the UK.

Guidance from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Public Health Scotland (PHS) explicitly advises against comparing Scotland's hospital waiting times and lists with those in England and Wales.

The UK Statistics Authority – while slapping Labour MP and UK government energy minister Michael Shanks on the wrist for an attempt to compare the systems which ended up being incorrect in three different ways – conceded that this can be "frustrating".

Data for England measures those waiting to start treatment, while PHS data is a count of those at different stages between diagnosis and treatment.

In Scotland's data a single patient could be on multiple waiting lists.

However, PHS estimates that around one in 10 of Scotland's population was on at least one new outpatient, inpatient or day‑case waiting list as of 28 February.

Long waits are not an issue isolated to Scotland and although direct comparisons cannot be made, data for the other three countries show waits over a year still exist.

NHS England figures show 136,000 patients were waiting over a year at the end of January, while in Northern Ireland more than 33,000 patients were waiting longer than a year, as of December 2025.

In Wales, 115,700 pathways were waiting over one year.

Another avenue of hospital healthcare is key diagnostic tests.

These include four endoscopy tests (including colonoscopies) and four radiology tests (such as CT and MRI scans).

PHS advises against comparing the waiting times for these diagnostic tests in Scotland with the other four nations due to inconsistencies in definitions.

One area of healthcare that is frequently contentious and can largely be compared across the UK is A&E waiting times.

Scotland and Wales have a target that 95% of patients are to be seen, admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours of arrival at an emergency department.

England had this target until June last year when it was dropped to 78%.

Northern Ireland has a different policy on when the A&E "clock" starts and stops, so cannot be included.

The overall trend shows that the target for all four nations has been consistently missed since the Covid pandemic.

Despite Scotland largely performing better than England and Wales over the years, it is still considerably below its target.

Ambulance response times in Scotland and across the UK remain under intense scrutiny, with reports of patients waiting hours for care.

The Scottish Ambulance Service records the median weekly response time by a prioritised colour-coded system.

These are purple (for the most life-threatening conditions such as heart attacks) through red, amber and yellow (less serious incidents).

Purple call outs tend to stay around the seven-minute target, and have ranged from six minutes 27 seconds to eight minutes nine seconds over the years.

Less serious yellow call outs tend to have much longer waits.

But these response times are not like-for-like with the rest of the UK.

Differences in the way figures are counted and factors like the age and health of the population, as well as nations' geography, play a part in the average response time of an ambulance.

It is possible to see look at how other ambulance response times measure against their own targets.

NHS England data shows the annual and monthly mean response times for category one call-outs are routinely above its own target.

Scotland has a target for 95% of diagnosed cancer patients to begin treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat, and for 95% of those referred urgently with a suspicion of cancer to begin treatment within 62 days of receipt of referral.

Although the first of these targets is routinely hit by the health service, the second has not been met for years.

Despite having similar 31 and 62‑day measures, differences in recording practices mean direct comparisons between cancer waiting times in Scotland and the rest of the UK cannot be made, according to PHS, NHS England and the ONS.

But it is possible to look at the general trend and how the nations measure up to their own targets.

England stays relatively close to its 31‑day target but, like Scotland, remains further away from hitting its 62‑day measure. Northern Ireland is also closer to hitting its 31-day target than its 62-day measure. While data for Wales shows it is also below hitting its 62-day target.

In addition to the four performance measures, BBC Verify has looked at other healthcare themes to determine if there is any cross-UK comparison.

Delayed discharges, which occur when a patient is clinically ready to leave a hospital but is forced to remain in a bed because necessary social care, support, or housing is unavailable, are incomparable.

PHS says this is due to differences in data definitions and recording Scottish data is not comparable to elsewhere in the UK.

Workforce figures, including GP numbers, also cannot be compared.

NHS Education for Scotland, which records employment levels and vacancies, said differences in workforce policy and statistical methods mean staffing numbers, including GP count, are not the same as those elsewhere in the UK.

Additional reporting by Lucy Dady, Rob England and Amy Jackson.