STAFF shortages, long waits for complex robotic surgery and a lack of theatre capacity have been blamed by the health boards with the worst cancer waiting times in Scotland, as the latest figures revealed deteriorating national performance in 2016.

Four health boards - Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lothian, Tayside and Grampian - failed to meet either the 31-day or 62-day treatment time targets between October 1 and December 31 last year.

Grampian said the delays were largely due to staff shortages, a lack of theatre capacity, and patients waiting for complex treatments including robotic surgery and a type of radiotherapy, SABR, which uses scans and specialist equipment to precisely target small tumours.

Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Scotland's largest health board, said it was struggling with an increase in referrals and backlogs around breast screening and complex urological surgery. Lothian also cited "challenging" delays to surgery for patients in urology, as well as colorectal cancer, and said there would be an "increased focus on the need to escalate delays at an early stage".

It came as Scotland-wide statistics revealed that patients with urological cancer are facing the longest waits overall with fewer than 75 per cent of patients beginning treatment within 62 days of an urgently referral with a suspicion of cancer against the Scottish Government target of 95 per cent.

NHS Tayside did not detail the factors behind its waiting times breaches.

Gregor McNie, Cancer Research UK’s senior public affairs manager in Scotland, said: “These latest figures show once again a worrying picture for cancer services, with many patients still waiting an unacceptably long time to start cancer treatment.

“Speedy diagnosis and access to treatment is key to improving someone’s chances of survival so it’s absolutely critical we see improvements soon."

The Scottish Government expects that 95 per cent of all cancer patients on the NHS will wait no more than 31 days from the decision to treat to first cancer treatment, and no more than 62 days from referral to first treatment.

The remaining ten health boards, including the Golden Jubilee, all achieved the 31-day target but only five - Borders, Dumfries & Galloway, Lanarkshire, Orkney and Shetland - met the 62-day target.

The details emerged in the latest figures on cancer waiting times from health statistics body, ISD Scotland.

Nationally, compliance against the 31-day target fell to a record low of 94.1 per cent in the final quarter of 2016 while the 62-day turnaround time dipped to 87.1 per cent, the second lowest compliance on record - but up slightly on the previous quarter.

Both have been falling fairly steadily over the past five years. As an annual average across NHS Scotland, performance against the 62-day target has deteriorated from 96.3 per cent in 2011 to 88.6 per cent in 2016, while the 31-day target has fallen from 97.8 per cent in 2011 to 94.7 per cent in 2016.

Colin Graham, chief executive of Cancer Support Scotland, said: “Health boards must continue to improve waiting times and that means government must invest in staff, equipment and support care to bring the non-performing health boards up to the standard demanded."

Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “While it’s encouraging that performance against our 62 day waiting time standard has improved, clearly we want to do more to ensure that our targets are met.

“Backed by our five-year £100 million Cancer Strategy, last December I announced a number of changes to benefit patients and increase access for all cancer patients – particularly focused on urology and colorectal cancer. We are also reforming outpatient services, streamlining access to cancer specialists and decreasing the time it takes to get a diagnosis.”