§ Mr. Thompsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list in the Official Report (a) the number of acute hospital beds in each of the health board areas in Scotland and (b) the average waiting time for the admission of non-urgent cases in each of these areas.
§ Mr. Harry EwingThe number of acute beds in each health board area in Scotland is as follows:
Argyll and Clyde 1,504 Ayrshire and Arran 1,106 Borders 346 Dumfries and Galloway 476 Fife 888 Forth Valley 789 Grampian 1,854 Greater Glasgow 6,209 Highland 852 Lanarkshire 1,708 Lothian 4,025 Orkney 56 Shetland 62 Tayside 2,215 Western Isles 102 It is not possible to give a comprehensive answer to the second part of the Question. The following table shows the mean waiting times, in days, of patients discharged during 1975, with selected diagnoses. The conditions chosen are common and are "non-urgent" in the sense that the majority of patients will be admitted from the waiting list. The figures have to be read with care because: (a) they refer only to patients discharged during 1975 and not to all patients on the waiting list in 1975; (b) some of the averages are based on small numbers either because there were few patients treated in a particular health board for a given condition or the date placed on the waiting list was not known for some of the cases; and (c) some of the conditions are managed in some hospitals on a day-patient basis, for which statistics are often not available.
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MEAN WAITING TIMES (IN DAYS) FOR PATIENTS DISCHARGED IN 1975 BY SELECTED DIAGNOSIS Ayrshire and Arran Borders Argyll and Clyde Fife Glasgow Highland Lanarkshire Grampian Orkney Lothians Tayside Forth Valley Western Isles Dumfries and Galloway Shetland Average Strabismus … 176 — 82 41 83 74 60 161 — 41 99 168 — 64 — 99 Cataract … … 203 — 101 52 87 90 60 158 — 39 78 118 — — — 99 Varices of Lower Limb 153 437 450 490 101 62 182 174 14 92 134 155 47 276 100 166 Haemorrhoids … 87 153 207 239 86 38 146 80 4 71 104 116 36 154 125 106 Hypertrophy of Tonsils/Adenoids 129 — 115 112 87 119 152 114 16 118 81 86 50 168 169 109 Hernia of Abdominal Cavity 91 97 176 195 70 53 167 64 15 67 111 105 55 232 63 99 Disease of Cervix (inc. Cervical-erosion) 107 131 67 51 40 41 140 50 13 55 45 93 11 75 39 62 Utero-Vaginal prolapse and mal-position of Uterus 109 — 114 63 47 57 98 68 — 70 62 134 36 163 122 77 Internal derangement of Knee Joint 30 115 155 120 56 66 59 76 8 67 86 156 48 44 80 80 Displacement of Intervertebral Disc 13 40 11 23 32 14 19 35 — 56 15 N.K. 12 34 2 35 — indicates that no waiting list cases were recorded. N.K. indicates that date placed on waiting list was unknown.