A&E in ‘crisis’ with worst-ever stats

SCOTLAND has recorded its worst-ever A&E performance figures since records began, with almost a quarter of patients waiting more than four hours to be seen. Only 76 per cent of the 25,461 patients attending Accident and Emergency departments across Scotland during the second week of August were admitted, transferred or discharged within the target time. A total of 6113 A&E patients were left waiting for more than four hours, according to the latest NHS Scotland statistics. Of those, 1050 waited longer than eight hours and 239 patients were left for more than 12 hours. It is the second week in a row that compliance with the four-hour target has dropped to record low CRITICISM Labour’s Jackie Baillie levels, following the previous week’s figure of 76.5 per cent.

The Scottish Government’s target is for 95 per cent of patients to wait no longer than four hours, although this has not been met since July 2020.

NHS Forth Valley was once again the worst-performing health board, with 65.6 per cent of the 1167 patients seen within four hours – down from 74.7 per cent the previous week.

Shetland’s health board was alone in hitting the 95 per cent target, achieving 95.7 per cent of patients admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

Scottish Labour deputy leader and health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “A&E services are in crisis and the Health Secretary is still missing in action.” Asked about the situation facing A&E departments during yesterday’s coronavirus briefing, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon insisted A&E had “absolutely not been abandoned”.

She confirmed the government would publish an NHS recovery plan on Wednesday.

Sturgeon said: “What we’re seeing in our NHS is a lot of people who, previously in the pandemic, would have chosen maybe not to come forward with symptoms because it’s been more difficult to get face-to-face interaction with a GP for example, and some people were scared to go into these kind of settings, people were following advice to stay at home.

“We’re now seeing demand in the NHS that has been suppressed coming to the fore on top of the backlogs of known demand that we’re already dealing with.”