Patients in Scotland have had to wait as long as 896 days for treatment despite the Government's 84-day treatment time guarantee, according to figures obtained by the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

The statistics, provided by health boards following freedom of information requests, show 12,275 patients have waited over six months for treatment since 2016-17, and 434 patients have not yet received treatment after more than a year on a waiting list.

Condemning the “shocking” figures, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, Alex Cole-Hamilton, said: “The number of people waiting over a year for procedures, when the law says it should take no longer than 12-weeks, is going up and up. This is disrupting people's lives and work, leaving them in discomfort and pain.”

Referring to the Scottish Government’s waiting times improvement plan, published in October last year, he stated: “The Scottish Government’s solution is stop breaching its own law by 2021 – a full decade after it was passed. Scottish Liberal Democrats demand better. The SNP’s mismanagement of the health service has gone on long enough.”