Second-highest level recorded for 12-hour waits in A&E, figures show

The number of people waiting more than 12 hours to be seen at Scotland’s A&Es hit the second-highest level on record, figures show.

Public Health Scotland statistics for week ending July 24 indicate that of the 25,615 attendances at emergency departments, 1,064 patients faced a wait of more than half a day.

The figure is a jump from the 901 people recorded waiting for the same length of time in the previous week.

A Scottish Government target aims to ensure 95% of those at emergency departments are seen and subsequently discharged or admitted within four hours.

However, just 65% of people – 8,955 – were attended to within this timeframe, which again saw a jump when compared to recent weeks, while some 2,798 patients waited for more than eight hours.

Monthly data for June also showed that of the 135,682 attendances at A&E services, just 71.3% were seen within the four-hour target – the worst on record for that measurement.

Some 10,945 people were not attended to for more than eight hours, while 3,937 waited longer than 12 hours.

Scottish Conservative health spokesperson Dr Sandesh Gulhane MSP branded the figures as “appalling”.

He said: “As the SNP Health Secretary wrings his hands, patients’ lives continue to be needlessly lost due to excess waits, and the morale of dedicated but over-stretched frontline staff is further sapped by their inability to meet the huge demands placed upon them.

“Years of dreadful workforce planning by the SNP has left our NHS under-staffed across the board – and nowhere more so than in A&E.

“It’s completely unacceptable that in high summer, when our emergency wards are traditionally quieter, a record proportion of people are having to wait more than four hours to be seen. I dread to think how bad things will be in winter.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “These kinds of extreme wait times puts lives at risk.

“If this target cannot be met in the middle of summer, just imagine the chaos once winter comes.

“Yet despite this deepening crisis, the SNP/Green Government would rather spend their days talking about an unwanted independence referendum and getting into spats with the UK Government, rather than taking action to reduce waiting times.

“Patients deserve to be seen for treatment quickly and close to home, and staff should not be simply left to make do in a state of perpetual crisis.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “These figures are from the most recent Covid wave during which hospital occupancy and staff absences remain high, impacting the delivery of emergency services.

“Despite this, nearly two-thirds of patients are being seen within four hours of arrival, and monthly stats published today show Scottish A&Es have outperformed the rest of the UK for the past 88 months.

“We are investing £50 million to drive down waiting times through our Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative programme.

“This will see flow navigation centres rolled out in every board across Scotland to get patients in front of a clinician sooner and avoid people waiting in A&E waiting rooms unnecessarily.”