The criticism has been sparked following the announcement that for the fourth year in a row Scotland’s NHS has missed the cancer waiting timescale target.
The current target is for 95 per cent of urgently referred cancer patients to begin treatment within 62 days.
However, in the last quarter only 87.5 per cent were seen within the target timescale.
The worst performing health board was NHS Western Isles, in which only 66.7 per cent of patients were seen within the 62 days.
With only five of the 14 regional health boards across Scotland hitting the target, the Scottish Conservatives are calling for the SNP to take urgent action to ensure cancer patients are being seen within the target time.
Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Donald Cameron said:
“People are quite right to question why targets have been missed for the fourth consecutive year.
“The SNP should be doing everything it can to ensure more patients are being seen within the target timescale.
“Instead they’ve let standards slide and as a result thousands of patients across Scotland are not receiving the treatment that they need when they need it.
“It’s inexcusable for the SNP to just continually brush these missed targets aside, especially when it's well known that receiving swift treatment for cancer can often make all the difference in improving outcomes for these patients.
“The SNP has badly let down patients and it is time they got back to the day job.”