Planned care

What is Planned Care?

Planned care refers to healthcare treatments or procedures that are scheduled in advance.

Examples of planned care include:

• Routine surgeries
• Diagnostic tests (such as MRI and CT scans)
• Outpatient appointments
• Cancer treatments

This contrasts with emergency care, which is immediate and unplanned. Planned care is sometimes referred to as elective care.

NHS Fife aims to provide timely and efficient planned care services. This involves managing waiting lists, ensuring optimal use of resources, and prioritising patient needs.

Access and referral

To access planned care, patients generally undergo a referral process starting with their GP, who evaluates their condition and determines if specialist care is required. Where specialist care is required, the GP will make a referral to a speciality clinic. 

Following this, patients may receive an appointment for a consultation, where the specialist determines their care needs and how this care will be progressed (such as operation and rehab programmes). 

An increasing number of services offer self-referral, which means you can start your planned care journey online. Examples of services using self-referral in Fife include:

• Sexual health
• Podiatry
• Pregnancy
• Children and young people’s physiotherapy/occupational therapy
• Nutrition and clinical dietetics

Referrals can also be made to services outside Fife usually via your GP or consultant, including neighbouring health boards and specialist facilities like the nationwide network of National Treatment Centres. 

Waiting times

The term ‘waiting time’ refers to the period between a patient being referred for a treatment or procedure and the actual date of that treatment or procedure.

Waiting times are viewed as an indicator of the performance of a healthcare system. Long waiting times can have a negative impact on patients' physical and mental health. Therefore, NHS Fife, like other health boards, aims to reduce waiting times and improve patient experience.   

Commonly, waiting times are referenced in discussions around:

• Cancer
• Outpatient appointments (where patients do not require to be admitted)
• Inpatient appointments (where patients need admitted)
• Diagnostic tests

View the latest NHS Fife performance data, including waiting times.

Information about managing your health and wellbeing whilst waiting.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also impacted waiting times, as planned procedures were postponed to prioritise emergency care and reduce the chances of virus transmission. This caused a backlog that NHS boards are still working through.

How we are working to reduce waiting times

We recognise that waiting times in Fife have increased, as they have across the country, and we are actively working to reduce waiting times for patients. Importantly, those with the greatest clinical need continue to be prioritised to be seen most quickly.

While waiting times present a significant challenge, we have set in motion several strategies: