Health Secretary branded ‘out of his depth’ despite improvement in A&E waits

Health Secretary Neil Gray has been branded “out of his depth” as he conceded the latest waiting times figures for accident and emergency departments showed “some patients are waiting too long”.

Stressing that the Scottish Government was “determined” to tackle the issue, Mr Gray said that the latest data show “some improvements over the last week”.

With 23,399 patients visiting the emergency room for help in the week ending January 19, figures from Public Health Scotland showed 63.1% of them were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within the four hour target time – up from 62.3% the previous week.

But the four-hour target was missed for 8,626 patients, compared to 8,444 the previous week.

However, the number having longer waits was lower, with data for the week ending January 19 showing 3,275 patients in  A&E for eight hours or more, including 1,616 who had a wait of 12 hours or longer – with these totals down from 3,584 and 1,985 respectively.

Mr Gray stressed: “Our A&E departments are still facing heightened pressure and this has been exacerbated by higher than normal levels of influenza and increased hospital occupancy.”

But Labour health spokesperson Dame Jackie Baillie hit out and said: “Every single week lives are being put at risk by dangerously long A&E waits but the SNP has done nothing to fix it.”

With the Health Secretary having recently come under attack for using Scottish Government cars to travel to football matches, the Labour MSP added: “Neil Gray is out of his depth and distracted by scandal, and John Swinney has shown no sign that he’s up to the challenge.

“We need a genuine change in direction from the SNP to put a stop to the chaos in our overstretched A&Es and properly protect patients and support staff.”

Scottish Conservative health spokesperson Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “It should be a source of shame for the SNP Government that more than one in three patients are still not being seen within the target time.

“These appalling waits cause dangerous backlogs in other areas of our NHS and will have led to 45 patients dying last week alone, based on expert modelling.”

Hitting out at First Minister John Swinney, the Tory, who is a GP as well as an MSP, said: “Rather than defending his scandal-ridden Health Secretary Neil Gray, the First Minister must finally commit to our common-sense plans to reduce bureaucracy in our NHS so that we can invest money into frontline care and finally put an end to these unacceptable delays.”

Meanwhile, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton claimed Scotland’s A&E departments “have been mired in crisis for years now”.

He said: “The SNP’s failure to give our hard-working NHS staff the beds and safe staffing levels that they need has left A&E in a state of crisis for too long.”

Mr Gray said: “NHS staff are continuing to work hard to ensure patients are seen as quickly as possible during this increased demand, but we know some patients are waiting too long and we are determined to drive improvements.

“We have a clear plan to reduce waiting times and delayed discharges supported by £200 million targeted investment through the 2025-26 Budget.

“We are determined to shift the balance of care from acute – to community. We will bring about this change by ensuring every A&E department has a frailty unit linked to community re-enablement.”