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The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Public Health Scotland (PHS), as Scotland’s national public health body for the purpose of intelligence and analysis, is responsible for sourcing waiting times data from hospital administrative systems.

PHS publish regular statistics relating to the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. This data can be used to identify the volume of long waits and the median waiting time by the specialty of treatment, including ophthalmology. The latest publication can be found here: Stage of treatment waiting times - Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients quarter ending 30 June 2025 - NHS waiting times - stage of treatment - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

The Scottish Government, along with our tourism agency VisitScotland, acknowledges the significance of adventure tourism. VisitScotland has teams strategically located throughout rural Scotland that are instrumental in collaborating with regional stakeholders to identify local needs and opportunities.

Scotland has an enviable global reputation as a major events powerhouse. Across the country our iconic venues and picture-perfect backdrops play host to world-leading cultural, business and sporting events all year round.

I refer the member to the answers for questions S6W-40963 and S6W-40964 on 17 October 2025.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 legislates that an eligible patient is to start to receive agreed inpatient or day case treatment within a 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG). This guarantee is based on completed waits where a patient is removed from the list after being admitted for treatment and does not include periods of waiting pre-decision to treat. Health Boards must take all reasonable steps to ensure they comply with this standard.

To support the above guarantee, 95% of new outpatients should wait no longer than 12 weeks from referral to being seen at a consultant-led clinic. This includes all referral sources.

We have seen progress in inpatient and day-case admissions, with 57% taking place within 12 weeks, up from the previous quarter, while a third of those still waiting had done so for less than 12 weeks. We expect NHS Boards to focus on these individual targets for each part of the patient journey, and we have routinely performance managed Boards on this basis since the implementation of the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011.

In addition, the Scottish Government’s NHS Scotland Waiting Times Guidance was updated in November 2023 to provide guidance for Health Boards to assist them in the delivery of the national waiting times standards. This guidance replaces the previous 2012 publication and continues to ensure that patients who are waiting for an appointment, diagnostic test or treatment are managed fairly and consistently across NHS Scotland. The changes made align to our commitment to deliver sustained improvements and reductions to waiting times through service redesign, as well as enhanced regional and national working across NHS Scotland.

Finally, our Budget is providing more than £110 million to Health Boards this year to support reductions to the longest waits for appointments and procedures.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40963 on 17 October 2025.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any NHS Scotland Health Board that is unable to link outpatient and inpatient data in order to provide a complete record of patient pathways from referral to treatment.

The Scottish Government launched a public consultation on Permitted development rights to support the provision of new homes on 3 September 2025. The consultation closes on 27 October 2025. The consultation sets out a range of options to simplify planning processes and encourage the provision of new homes in rural areas and town and city centres.

The consultation responses will inform the formation and refinement of any proposals for new or amended permitted development rights. A statutory instrument containing any changes stemming from the consultation would likely be laid in the Scottish Parliament in early 2026.

A summary of the consultation responses will be published in due course. Individual responses will be published where consent has been given.

NatureScot has a statutory role to promote and publicise the Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC) and to keep it under review. This does not conflict with NatureScot’s role in protecting and conserving nature. The SOAC is very clear that disturbance of wildlife or protected areas does not fall within the standards of responsible behaviour expected and would not, therefore fall within the definition of ‘responsible access’ rights. It should go without saying that our laws relating to nature conservation should be complied with.

NatureScot and the National Access Forum have recently updated guidance on managing wildlife disturbance and outdoor access, which provides more detail on this matter.

The management of access rights is a matter for access authorities, who have a statutory duty and powers to ensure access rights are upheld. This is done within the framework of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC) which provides specific guidance for event organisers, land managers and the public in respect to responsible access. Clearly all events of the kind mentioned vary in scale, sensitivity and location and there may, therefore, be the appearance of this guidance being applied differently. Examples of Guidance associated with outdoors events include Outdoor events in Scotland and Commercial access to the outdoors.

NatureScot have a statutory duty to promote, publicise and keep the Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC) under review. In discharging this duty NatureScot work with access authorities and the National Access Forum. Currently the Outdoor events in Scotland and Commercial access to the outdoors guidance is being reviewed and updated by NatureScot and the National Access Forum. This work is being led by a group which has been established with representatives of access managers, land managers and event organisers.

The 18 weeks Referral to Treatment (RTT) standard is one of a number of targets set by the Scottish Government for access to hospital services.