Energy Minister Michael Shanks has been formally reprimanded by the UK's official statistics watchdog for making misleading claims about NHS waiting times in Scotland.
Misleading Video Sparks Official Rebuke
The controversy stems from a video posted by Mr Shanks to his X (formerly Twitter) account in November 2025. In the clip, which mimicked a news broadcast, the minister accused the Scottish Government of "doctoring" NHS waiting time figures.
He claimed that 12,000 people had been waiting over two years for treatment in Scotland, compared to only 168 in England. He also asserted that the waiting time 'clock' for patients resets if they miss an appointment, artificially reducing reported waiting lists.
Statistics Watchdog Warns Against Comparison
In a letter, UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) deputy chairwoman Penny Young issued a clear rebuke. She warned that directly comparing the figures for Scotland and England was invalid due to fundamentally different data collection methods.
Ms Young explained that Scotland records 'open waits', while England uses a different metric, making a simple numerical comparison misleading. She acknowledged public frustration over the lack of comparable UK-wide NHS data but stressed the challenge posed by differing healthcare policies and IT systems.
On the claim about resetting waiting times, Ms Young clarified that while clocks do reset if a patient misses an appointment or refuses two reasonable offers, this does not reduce the overall size of waiting lists. It can, however, affect the count of very long waits by returning a patient's recorded wait time to zero.
Political Fallout and Calls for Apology
The video was reported to the UKSA by SNP MSP Kevin Stewart, who labelled it "grossly inappropriate" and "deeply offensive" to NHS staff. He called on Mr Shanks to apologise, stating the minister should recognise progress under First Minister John Swinney, with waits having fallen for six consecutive months.
A Scottish Labour spokeswoman shifted focus to the broader crisis, citing hundreds of thousands on waiting lists and urged the SNP to fix the problems it had created.
Despite recent reductions, the Scottish Government is still far from its target of eliminating year-long waits by March 2026. The UKSA's intervention underscores the heightened political sensitivity surrounding NHS performance data and the necessity for accurate statistical representation in public debate.
