NHS Lothian waiting times show signs of improvement

Waiting times at NHS Lothian are showing signs of improvement compared with this time last year, according to the latest figures.

In the week starting March 4, 2024 NHS Lothian performed above the Scotland average for response times for emergency calls.

The average response time for emergency calls for the health board was 8 minutes and 5 seconds for 300 responses. The average for Scotland was 8 minutes and 36 seconds.

The latest figure for NHS Lothian is a slight improvement on the average response time for emergency calls in March 2023, which delivered an average of 8 minutes and 18 seconds for 313 responses. The target for emergency call response times is just under nine minutes.

The percentage of NHS Lothian patients waiting longer than the target time of four hours at A&E in the week starting February 26, 2024, was 40 per cent of 4,519 arrivals, which was better than the Scotland average of 35 per cent. The NHS Lothian figure for A&E waits is an improvement on the February 2023 average when 38 per cent of 4,118 arrivals were seen within the four-hour target time.

The average time for NHS Lothian patients awaiting routine treatments has also shown signs of improvement over the past year. Results from December 2023 show that 30 per cent of 9,851 patients were treated within the target time of 18 weeks for routine treatments. This was an improvement on the 26 per cent of 9,364 patients treated within the target time for routine treatments in 2022. Both figures were below the Scotland average of 34 per cent for 2023.