HEALTH Secretary Alex Neil has insisted there is no "institutional fiddle" within the NHS to meet Government waiting times targets.
He faced questions at Holyrood yesterday amid growing fears health boards have manipulated figures.
He told MSPs: "To date, only two boards out of 14 have identified problems, namely Lothian and Tayside."
He said he would not "rush to judgment" but added: "We don't have an institutional fiddle like hidden waiting lists. We have nothing to hide. There are five million hospital consultations in Scotland every year. It is inevitable that from time to time something may well go wrong. Any systematic problems we'll deal with along with our health boards."
All NHS boards were asked to review their appointments practices earlier this year. The probes were ordered after it emerged NHS Lothian had offered patients treatment in England at short notice.
When they declined to go, they were marked as "un-available for social reasons" and not included among patients on a list which had the target time of 18 weeks for treatment.
Two senior executives were suspended at NHS Tayside last week following an audit of the health board's waiting times procedures.
It has also been claimed NHS Grampian phoned patients during the day, without leaving messages, and then declared them not contactable.
A health board is not held to be in breach of the Government's promise to treat patients within 18 weeks if they are not contactable.
Mr Neil said the 14 health board reports would be published before Christmas. A parallel investigation, by Audit Scotland and accountancy experts PwC, is expected to report in February.
Scots Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: "Most people would think two out of 14 was a serious failure rate."
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