Patients sent on 20-mile trip to f ind a bed
HOSPITALS in the Glasgow area were 96 per cent full yesterday, coming frighteningly close to full capacity.
As the NHS crisis continued, there were fears wards could be overwhelmed by demand, with patients being sent up to 20 miles away for a hospital bed.
Emergency patients at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Renfrewshire – where one person earlier this week had to wait 20 hours for a specialist bed – faced the 40-mile round trip to a ward in Greenock.
The news came as the Scottish Government published figures showing 88.8 per cent of patients were seen within the four-hour target over Christmas and New Year.
However, the SNP still faced criticism after hundreds of operations were cancelled because the beds were needed for A&E.
Scottish Tory health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: ‘Waiting times results of 88.8 per cent are hardly worth celebrating, as the Scottish Government seems to want to.
‘That’s a significant drop on last year and well below its own artificially reduced target of 95 per cent. The SNP can hardly blame the winter weather – casualty waiting times have been r e peatedly bad t hr o ugh all climates under its watch.’
The largest health board, Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGAC), still had three extra wards open yesterday to cope with the New Year patient demand – including a makeshift portable cabin previously used for storage.
Its 34 hospitals, excluding specialist beds and the Beatson cancer centre, were operating at 96 per cent capacity, while 11 patients had to be transferred to other hospitals.
Elsewhere in the country, the flood of can- celled operations slowed and some hospitals showed signs of returning to normal.
The Scottish Government figures show 88.8 per cent of patients in A&E were admitted or sent home within four hours, against a target of 95 per cent for the festive season.
This was above the English figure of 82.8 per cent, but the rate fell to 82.6 per cent in GGAC, where more than 2,400 patients were forced to wait more than four hours. Theresa Fyffe of the Royal College of Nursing in Scotland said: ‘If one of the reasons Scotland’s A&Es are performing against the four-hour target less badly than their counterparts in England is because patients are having surgery cancelled, it misses the point.
‘I don’t think that 88.8 per cent of patients being seen within four hours will be much comfort to those waiting for cancer surgery.’
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘These figures show that this year’s Christmas period was a particularly challenging time for our A&E services and across our NHS. It is clear we must improve our performance which is why we’ll go on increasing investment, improving systems and protecting staffing levels.’
A GGAC spokesman said: ‘ Our staff are working tirelessly to ensure that all patients are seen and either admitted or discharged as soon as possible.’