More patients faced longest waits in A&E, weekly figures show
The number of patients waiting 12 hours or more in accident and emergency has increased again, after falling for three weeks in a row.
The latest figures show 729 patients spent 12 hours or more in hospital emergency departments in the week ending June 11 – up from 640 the previous week.
Of the 27,292 patients who attended A&E in the latest week, almost seven out of 10 (69.6%) were seen and either admitted, transferred or discharged within the four-hour target time.
That is up slightly from 69.2% the previous week – but is still well below the Scottish Government’s ambition of having 95% of patients dealt with within four hours.
The latest data from Public Health Scotland also shows there were 2,283 patients who waited eight hours or more in A&E – up from 2,028 the previous week.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “These appalling figures make it clear that Humza Yousaf’s disastrous tenure as health secretary is continuing to have a devastating impact on our A&E departments.”
The Tory MSP, who is also a GP, said that “despite the best efforts of my dedicated colleagues on the front line, almost one third of patients had to wait more than four hours and the number of patients waiting over eight and 12 hours has increased again”.
He added: “This is utterly unacceptable. We know that waits of these lengths lead to tragic, needless loss of life.
“It is disgraceful that patients are paying the price for SNP incompetence.
Dr Gulhane said current Health Secretary Michael Matheson must “urgently get to grips with these waiting times”.
Labour’s health spokeswoman Dame Jackie Baillie said: “We hoped that a new Health Secretary might help end the crisis in our NHS, but we are still no closer to fixing the chaos in our A&E.
“Patients and staff are both struggling under these conditions and this crisis cannot be allowed to continue any longer.”
She demanded the Health Secretary takes “serious action to clean this up”, adding: “We cannot allow these poor waiting times to be normalised. This marks a serious failure of the SNP and it is simply not good enough.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “While performance continues to fluctuate as we work towards recovery, we are encouraged by these latest statistics which show performance moving in the right direction, with more patients waiting less than four hours to be seen.
“Nevertheless, we know that performance is not where it needs to be and we continue to work closely with the health boards 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. Addressing delayed discharge remains of critical importance across our NHS and we continue to work to reduce these instances.”