National Waiting List Validation – Patients Waiting Over 10 Weeks  

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From next week, Monday 3 November 2025, patients (who are over 16 years old) who have been waiting over 10 weeks for an outpatient or inpatient appointment or who are a return patient waiting past their recall date and who do not currently have an appointment in the following specialities will receive a phone call from The National Elective Coordination Unit (NECU) on 0345 646 0565:

  • Cardiology
  • Dermatology
  • Diabetes
  • General Medicine
  • Rheumatology
  • Speech and Language Therapy 

The phone call will be from a member of the NECU team who will take patients through a short survey asking if patients still need their appointment, followed by a few questions to confirm their identity. People who are answering the survey on behalf of someone else must provide the patient’s details at this stage.

If you are unable to respond to the NECU phone call, you will be contacted via letter (a few weeks after) to determine if you still require to remain on the waiting list.

You can find out more information about NECU on the website here, https://www.nhscfsd.co.uk/our-work/national-elective-coordination-unit/

If you have any questions regarding the phone call, you can contact the NECU team via email on gjnh.necuadmin@gjnh.scot.nhs.uk.

For general enquiries regarding your appointment, you can contact the relevant team via the main reception at The Balfour by calling 01856 888100, likewise if you think you should have been contacted and haven’t, you can call The Balfour on 01856 888100.

Please note, some patients may be contacted via ourselves at NHS Orkney while the waiting list validation process takes place. If you are offered an appointment during this time, please do still attend and if you are called by the NECU team, please confirm you still require to be kept on the list. We don’t anticipate this to be a large number of patients but if you have any questions at all regarding your appointment, please get in touch via the relevant routes above.