Joanne Edwards
Health chiefs have admitted University Hospital Hairmyres is at its limit as figures revealed A&E department waiting times were the worst in Scotland for the first week of this year.
Four in 10 people waited longer than the four-hour Scottish Government target time for the week ending Sunday, January 7.
And the health board said its critical care unit is running at full capacity, which is stretching A&E to breaking point.
Statistics showed that 62.4 per cent of patients were seen within four hours – well below the Scottish Government target of 95 per cent and the NHS Lanarkshire average of 74.9 per cent for the same week.
It was also a drop from 72.4 per cent for the previous week. Alarmingly, a total of 133 patients waited more than eight hours and 66 had to sit for 12 hours.
Bosses at Hairmyres have apologised to patients for the long delays and have said staff are doing all they can to ensure patients are seen as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, at NHS Lanarkshire’s other two acute hospitals in Wishaw and Monklands in Airdrie, 84 per cent and 77.4 per cent of patients, respectively, were seen within four hours in the week ending January 7.
In stark contrast to Hairmyres, 25 patients at Monklands and 35 at Wishaw waited over eight hours while just three waited more than 12 hours at the Airdrie site and seven at Wishaw.
Joanne Edwards, University Hospital Hairmyres director of hospital services, has admitted seriously-ill patients are having to be transferred to NHS Lanarkshire’s other two sites.
She said: “We have seen a significant increase in the number of seriously-ill patients being admitted to hospital and our critical care unit has been running at full capacity.
“Unfortunately this has impacted on our A&E waiting times and we are sorry that some patients have experienced long
Please do not attend A&E unless you have been advised to do so
waits as a result.
“All of our staff have worked extremely hard to ensure patients are seen and treated as quickly and possible during this period of exceptional demand.
“When we experience an exceptionally high rate of emergency admissions, we work as a clinical network to divert GP pre-assessed patients directly to another NHS Lanarkshire hospital where clinically appropriately to do so.
“We would advise anyone who is feeling unwell to visit NHS inform for advice on self-care in the first instance. Please do not attend A&E unless you have been advised to do so.”