The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
‘Shocking’ waiting times
HUNDREDS OF sick and injured people were left waiting for more than 12 hours before they were even seen in Fife’s emergency wards over the last year.
Shocking new statistics show more than half of those enduring half-day waits in accident and emergency units were in Fife.
Just short of 900 people nationwide seeking emergency treatment waited at least 12 hours. Of those, 476 were in either Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline, or Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy.
The shocking figures for Fife, revealed by Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon, eclipse those of the busy emergency rooms in Scotland’s two biggest cities.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde kept only six patients waiting for similar periods, while in NHS Lothian the equivalent figure was 130.
The data includes January, when A&E services were transferred from Queen Margaret Hospital to the new £170 million wing at Victoria Hospital and teething troubles prompted a deluge of complaints.
NHS Fife admitted it needs to do better and said improvements were already being made.
Labour shadow health secretary Jackie Baillie claimed cuts to frontline staff were making it increasingly difficult for medical staff to cope.
“The SNP has cut around 2,500 nurses who are vital in ensuring that patients are treated quickly, effectively and properly,” she said.
“Add this to shutting wards due to staff shortage, unclean hospitals, frail elderly patients being left to feed themselves in hospital and fiddling waiting lists, it shows just how much things have deteriorated under Nicola Sturgeon.”
Labour MSP Margaret McCulloch, whose parliamentary question uncovered the full extent of the crisis, added: “These are shocking figures.
“Thousands of Scots in distress and needing urgent treatment are being left to wait for unacceptable amounts of time.”
A national campaigner for patients’rights branded the situation unforgivable and questioned if NHS Fife had underestimated the needs of its population.
Scotland Patients Association executive director Dr Jean Turner said: “Even a fourhour wait is a long, long time if you are the patient or the relative. It is unforgiveable when someone is not well. Where have the care, attention, respect and dignity gone?
“It seems that NHS Fife is out of kilter with the needs of its population more so than other health boards.”
Fife Council executive member for health Andrew Rodger said: “The waiting time figures released today for NHS Fife are simply not good enough and NHS Fife should apologise. That said, they have taken a number of steps to bring down those times and ensure the people of Fife get easier access to such services.”
Elected NHS Fife board member John Winton said: “It’s no secret that the worst hospital in Scotland for meeting these targets was Queen Margaret Hospital, which quickly turned into Victoria Hospital when the Vic took over.”
But he said more recent performance figures, yet to be released, showed progress.
NHS Fife’s director of acute services, George Cunningham, said the health authority recognised it had failed to consistently achieve the standard of ensuring that 98 per cent of patients were treated, admitted or discharged within four hours.
A specialist team has already been tasked with identifying why.
“While our staff are working exceptionally hard, we know we need to improve our systems,” he told The Courier.
Last May, NHS Fife launched a programme to coordinate improvements.
The programme, he said, was showing early signs of success.
Mr Cunningham revealed that last month 98.3% of emergency patients were treated, discharged or admitted within four hours, and 90% in three hours.