To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people were waiting for urgent hospital treatment in each major specialty at 31 March in each regional health authority.

[holding answer 7 June 1993]: Available information about waiting lists and waiting times is published quarterly in the "NHS Patient Treatment and Waiting Time Bulletin", copies of which are in the Library of the House. The information collected does not classify patients according to degree of urgency: this is for individual clinicians' judgment. We do know, however, that about half of all admissions are immediate, and that about half of all waiting list admissions are within four weeks.