A&E waiting time stagnation continues

The proportion of people waiting more than four hours at Scotland’s emergency departments has continued to stagnate, new figures show.

Statistics released by Public Health Scotland on Tuesday show 68.9% of attendances at A&E waited longer than four hours in the week up to July 9, up slightly from 68.8% the previous week.

The Scottish Government aims for 95% of attendances to bee seen and subsequently admitted or discharged within four hours – a target that has not been met since the early months of the pandemic.

Of the 24,880 attendances in that week, 673 people waited more than 12 hours, up from 600 the previous week, while 1,980 waited longer than eight hours, down from 1,966.

A total of 7,729 people waited more than four hours, down from 7,913.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Weekly A&E performance against the four-hour target has stabilised.

“However, performance is not where we want it to be and we continue to work closely with NHS Boards, who are facing the greatest challenges in A&E, to drive down waiting times and improve services for patients and staff.

“Hospital bed occupancy continues to be a major factor impacting on performance which is why we are working to reduced instances of delayed discharge. We are continuing to manage ongoing pressures on acute care by expanding our Hospital at Home capacity across the country.”

Scottish Tory deputy health spokeswoman Tess White said the figures were “utterly unacceptable”.

“It now appears tragically inevitable that, regardless of the time of year, one-third of patients will have to wait more than four hours to be seen in Scotland’s A&E departments,” she added.

“The SNP have failed to meet their own waiting-time target for more than three years and remain miles off from doing so.

“Despite the best efforts of dedicated NHS staff, our A&E departments continue to be overwhelmed due to the failures of Humza Yousaf’s flimsy NHS recovery plan.”