More A&E patients are being seen in target time
Slight improvement for RAH
Paisley’s overstretched A&E department is showing early signs of improvement - despite nationwide winter worries over the NHS.
Figures show that more patients have been seen within the four-hour target at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Despite reaching a record low three weeks ago - when just 58.2 per cent of patients were seen within the four hour time frame set by the Scottish Government there has been a decrease in waiting times at the site.
Data shows that 68.2 per cent of 1,103 patients attending A&E at the Corsebar Road hospital were seen within four hours, in the week leading up to October 31.
It still falls far short of Holyrood targets, which call for 95 per cent of patients turning out at emergency departments to be treated, admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
But the guideline has not been met for months as the NHS faces crisis and fresh fears have arisen over the service’s prospect of coping with winter pressures.
Figures show that 351 patients at the RAH site waited more than four hours, while some 85 waited more than eight, and nine patients waited 12 hours or more.
A spokesperson for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the NHS is still in a “difficult period”, but thanked hard-working staff, saying: “Reducing the waiting time for patients in our Emergency Department (ED) at RAH is a key goal in responding to the current demand on services.
“We’d like to thank all of our staff for their ongoing efforts which have helped more patients get seen, assessed, diagnosed and admitted or discharged within four hours at the hospital during this difficult period.
“We continue to prioritise our patients based on clinical need and would like to remind anyone who thinks they need to visit an ED always to either call NHS24 on 111 first, or speak to their local GP or pharmacist.
“Unless life-threatening, going down these routes first will ensure people get the right type of treatment at the right time, and will help protect our EDs at the RAH for those who require emergency care.”
Scottish figures show that, nationally, 71.4 per cent of patients attending for emergency care were dealt with in the four hour window.
Meanwhile, five people have died of Covid-19 in Renfrewshire in the past week.
It marks a further drop in the number of weekly deaths, down from seven.
Figures from the National Records of Scotland for the week beginning November 1, show the number of fatalities in the area since the pandemic began now stands at 595.
Scottish figures now show that, as of November 7, there have been 11,818 deaths where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate - 140 of these took place in the past week, an increase of five on the previous week.
Glasgow City once again experienced the highest weekly number of covid deaths with 23, while East Ayrshire recorded 14 fatalities and North Lanarkshire logged 11.