Number of accident and emergency patients in Scotland waiting for more than 12 hours hits record high again
Scotland has again recorded the highest figure on record for the number of people waiting at A&E for more than 12 hours.
Official figures from Public Health Scotland showed 1,022 people waited more than half a day in the week ending March 27 - an increase of seven from the week before.
The Scottish Government aims to ensure 95 per cent of people who attend A&E are seen and subsequently discharged or admitted to hospital within four hours. During the seven-day period, 68.4 per cent of the 25,264 attendances at emergency departments were seen within four hours.
The number of people waiting to be seen for more than eight hours also increased by 12 when compared to the previous week, with 2,627 patients spending that time in A&E departments.
Meanwhile, statistics for the whole of February showed performance was down when it came to seeing patients within 12 hours.
Out of a total of 110,196 attendances across Scotland, 2,404 (2.2 per cent) people waited for longer than this time period - an increase of 138 patients.
Some 74.2 per cent of patients in A&E were seen within the four-hour standard - a fall from 76 per cent in January's data and 75.7 per cent in December.
However, the number of attendees waiting for more than eight hours decreased slightly in the month of February, with 6,602 (6.2 per cent) patients spending that time in emergency departments compared to last month's figure of 6,682.
Public Health Scotland yesterday also highlighted a 57 per cent year-on-year increase in delays to discharging patients across the country in February this year, with 47,713 days being spent in hospital as a result of hold-ups.
In comparison, under this metric, there were 30,450 days spent in hospitals in February 2021.
In february 2022, the average number of beds occupied per day due to delayed discharges was 1,704, which Public Health Scotland said is more consistent with pre-pandemic figures.
The daily average was 1,699 in the month of January this year.