On Tuesday 12 August 2025, the NHS Fife Board met to review progress on key priorities, ensure public resources are used effectively, and oversee the quality and safety of healthcare services for the people of Fife.

The bi-monthly meetings are held in public and provide an opportunity for the Board members to review the delivery of healthcare services and seek assurance around future service planning.

Attendees were welcomed to the meeting by Board Chair, Pat Kilpatrick. The Medical Director, Professor Christopher McKenna, outlined for the Board, the benefits and the scale of pioneering use of robotic surgery in Fife. This followed NHS Fife recently reaching the milestone of having completed 1,000 robotic surgical procedures since the programme was launched in 2021.

The Board also reviewed the latest Integrated Performance & Quality Report, which sets out how NHS Fife is performing against key national targets. The report helps ensure transparency, supports oversight, and drives continuous improvement in priority areas including patient care, safety, and service delivery.

  • Unscheduled care – emergency access performance for May 2025 was 79.8%, which while below the national target of 95% represents the highest level of performance in two years. Unplanned attendances to the Emergency Department remain high, long waits for beds decreased.
  • Cancer waiting times – NHS Fife continues to meet the 95% target for starting cancer treatment within 31 days of the decision to treat, reflecting strong performance in initiating timely care. Work is ongoing to address capacity constraints in diagnostics and treatment pathways to further improve performance against the 62-day referral-to-treatment target.
  • Planned Care – There is a focus on reducing and eliminating long waits for new outpatient appointments, procedures and diagnostic tests. NHS Fife is actively participating in the national Elective Care Recovery Programme to reduce backlogs. Areas of focus include increasing theatre utilisation, weekend operating and targeted waiting list initiatives. There is also a weekly review of waiting times and escalation of long waits.
  • Complaints - Notable improvements have been made in handling early resolution cases (stage 1 complaints) with 74.1% closed within five days. Improvement is still required for complex complaints (Stage 2) although dedicated and focussed efforts are ongoing to enhance response times.
  • Delayed discharge - The number of patients experiencing delayed discharge from hospital continues to be high, which impacts bed availability and patient flow.
  • Diagnostics – NHS Fife continues to be the best performing of all mainland Health Boards on diagnostics. 85.8% of patients were seen within six weeks in the first three months of 2025 compared to the national average of 58.5%. This follows a similar pattern to the previous three-month period where 87.1% of patients referred to the diagnostic services in Fife, were seen within six weeks, well above the Scottish average of 53.1%.
  • Financial performance - At June 2025, the projected forecast deficit for NHS Fife is £9.254m which is currently tracking in line with our 2025/26 financial plan approved by Scottish Government. Around £29 million of savings are programmed to be delivered by year-end to support delivering within the 2025/26 financial plan. 

The new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy (2025-2028) was also discussed, which aims to promote recovery-focused care, develop community based mental health services whilst reducing reliance on inpatient hospital beds, and ensure equity of access across Fife.

The Chair commented: “At our Board meeting, we discussed several areas where we are performing strongly, and indeed many other areas where we know that improvement is required.

“There are of course many challenges, not least the ongoing post-pandemic recovery and the ever-growing demand for healthcare services. We are also very clear about the work that lies ahead of us, and recent developments like the establishment of our gynaecology and urology treatment units at Queen Margaret Hospital, and the pioneering work around robotics and orthopaedics at the Victoria Hospital help demonstrate our commitment to improving both operational performance and patient outcomes.

“We remain determined to provide the infrastructure which allows our staff to provide healthcare services that are not only fit for purpose in the here and now, but which can adapt and evolve to meet the needs of our population in the months and years ahead.” 

The Board papers are publicly available on the NHS Fife website at: NHS Fife Board | NHS Fife.

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