More than a quarter of A&E patients waiting longer than four hours once again

The latest weekly accident and emergency figures show that 26.8% of patients waited longer than the four-hour target.

Scotland’s accient and emergency waiting time performance has deteriorated again (Stefan Rousseau/PA) (PA Archive)

More than a quarter of patients waited longer than four hours to be seen in Scotland’s accident and emergency departments after another deterioration in waiting time performance.

Just 73.2% of A&E patients were seen within the government’s four-hour target, according to the latest NHS Scotland figures.

It is the sixth time in seven weeks that the proportion of patients admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours exceeded 25%, with the Scottish Government target set at 95% of patients seen in that time.

The figures also reveal that, of the 6,493 patients who waited longer than four hours during the week ending November 21, there were 1,333 who waited more than eight hours and 374 over 12 hours.

• 73.2% of patients seen within four hours in the week ending November 21
• 75.2% of patients seen within four hours in the week ending November 14
• 73.8% of patients seen within four hours in the week ending November 7
• 71.4% of patients seen within four hours in week ending October 31
• 69.6% of patients seen within four hours in the week ending October 24

Weekly A&E performance had improved slightly in each of the previous three weeks after recovering from a record high of 30.4% of patients who waited longer than the target time.

Despite a two percentage point improvement on the previous week, NHS Forth Valley remains the worst-performing health board with 40.2% of patients experiencing waits of four hours or more.

It is followed by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (33%) and NHS Grampian (27.9%).

NHS Tayside also became the first mainland health board to exceed the 95% target – seeing 97.6% of its 1,400 A&E patients within four hours – since the end of June 2021.

The only other health boards to achieve that target were NHS Western Isles (100% of its 87 patients) and NHS Orkney, with 96.6% of its 88 patients seen in that time.

As the peak winter period looms, the SNP Government must belatedly get a grip of this A&E crisis or the situation will get even worse

Dr Sandesh Gulhane MSP

Responding to the figures, Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “Once again we see A&E waiting times unacceptably high and getting worse, despite (Health Secretary) Humza Yousaf’s complacent assurance last week that things were moving in the right direction.

“The Royal College of Emergency Medicine Scotland has rightly pointed out that appallingly high waiting times are leading to preventable deaths – yet the SNP inexplicably criticised the data rather than take action.

“Even with the continued, invaluable support of the UK Armed Forces and the Health Secretary’s desperate efforts to divert patients from A&E to equally overstretched GP services, more than a quarter of emergency patients are waiting more than four hours to be seen.

“I’m deeply concerned by these figures. As the peak winter period looms, the SNP Government must belatedly get a grip of this A&E crisis or the situation will get even worse.”