Swinney challenged to act on A&E waiting times

Incoming first minister John Swinney is being urged to take “meaningful action” to tackle waiting times in accident and emergency – as new figures showed the number of patients waiting longer than the target time reached its highest total for more than a year in March.

The latest data from Public Health Scotland (PHS) showed A&E departments dealt with 135,207 patients in March – with 67.4 per cent being either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

However there were 44,061 patients who spent longer than the target time in A&E over the course of the month – the highest total since December 2022.

The statistics for March also showed 14,615 people, more than one in ten patients (11 per cent), took eight hours or more.

There were also 5,816 patients – 4.4 per cent cases in A&E – who were there for at least 12 hours.

The Scottish Government has set the target of having 95 per cent of all patients in A&E being admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

Public Health Scotland said however that compliance with this target has “been below 80 per cent since summer 2021”.

Separate figures covering the last week of april showed of the 26,359 patients who attended at A&E, 64.5 per cent were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours–down from 65.8 per cent the previous week. A total of 9,361 patients waited more than four hours – including 3,263 patients who were there for eight hours or more and 1,500 who were there for at least half a day.

Scottish liberal democrat leader Alex Cole-hamilton insisted incoming first minister johns win ney must act, saying: “With a new First Minister taking office this week, this needs to be a turning point for the crisis in our A&E departments.”