First week of year sees worst accident and emergency waiting times on record

Scotland recorded the worst ever accident and emergency waiting times in the first week of the year, NHS figures reveal.

Almost a third (32.6%) of the 21,163 patients attending A&E waited more than four hours before they were admitted to the hospital, transferred or discharged.

The Scottish Government’s target of 95% of patients being attended to within four hours has not been met since July 2020 and the 67.4% seen in that time during the week ending January 9 is the lowest ever recorded.

Of the 6,902 patients who waited longer than four hours, 2,079 waited over eight hours and 690 people spent more than 12 hours at A&E before being seen.

Responding to the figures, Scottish Conservative health spokesman, Dr Sandesh Gulhane, said: “These worst ever A&E stats are a shameful indictment of Humza Yousaf’s inept stewardship of Scotland’s NHS.

“The tragic reality is that these delays lead to needless loss of life.

“How many wake-up calls does the Health Secretary need before he finally devises a coherent strategy to tackle the unacceptable emergency waiting times in Scotland?

“Yet his responses feel like a rearranging of the deckchairs on the Titanic.

“Instead of the detailed action plan we crave, we get desperate pleas for patients to go to GPs rather than A&E.

“This has simply added to the crisis in general practice – as we saw with the partial suspension of GP services in NHS Lanarkshire last week – while having no apparent effect on our emergency wards, which are beyond breaking point.”

When asked about the situation in Scotland’s A&E during a visit to a hospital in Edinburgh last week, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf warned of “really high staff absences” and said: “This is the most difficult period our NHS has ever faced because of the pandemic.”

He told the PA news agency: “Look at the first week of January compared to the last week in December – there was a 65% increase in the staff that were absent due to Covid related reasons.

“So there are reasons for that performance, there are reasons for that pressure.

“What we’re doing is investing significant amounts of money, and not just a £300 million pound winter package, which will help the situation, but I don’t doubt that the situation would be a lot worse had we not invested that money.”