PATIENT WAITS 40 HOURS IN A&E
As SNP government cuts NHS budget by crippling £100m, the crisis in Scotland’s hospitals is laid bare...
PATIENTS have been forced to wait up to 40 hours in Scotland’s A&E departments, sparking fears that delays are putting lives at risk.
New statistics, which have been branded a ‘disgrace’, reveal the worst waiting times in health board areas.
NHS Ayrshire and Arran had the longest waiting time, with one patient in A&E for 39 hours and 41 minutes – nearly two whole days.
Meanwhile, patients in Lanarkshire faced waits of up to 30 hours and seven minutes to be admitted.
Patients at NHS Lothian waited up to 29 hours and 54 minutes, and at NHS Highland the longest time was 21 hours and 33 minutes.
The shocking figures are just the latest measure of a health service that was severely disrupted by the pandemic and remains under intense pressure. One recent report suggested that delays in A&E treatment were the cause of hundreds of deaths.
The delays have sparked criticism of Health Secretary Humza Yousaf after the SNP Government announced that £100 million is to be cut from the NHS budget. The leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Alex Cole-Hamilton, lambasted the SNP for presiding over 15 years of neglecting the NHS.
He said: ‘Nobody should spend almost two days in A&E. Emergency care is woefully understaffed.
‘When NHS staff are exhausted, patients’ lives are potentially put at risk. We are facing the consequences of 15 years of SNP neglect of our health service.’
The data was compiled by the Lib Dems, who asked health boards around the country to reveal their worst waiting times in A&E during the year 2020/21 when
Scotland was in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to targets set by the Scottish Government, 95 per cent of patients should be treated within four hours.
But according to answers given in response to the Freedom of Information (FoI) request, in the worst cases this was widely missed.
At NHS Ayrshire and Arran, at least one patient was waiting for almost 40 hours.
At NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian, patients faced waits of up to 30 hours, while at NHS Highland, the worst time was 21 hours.
Other boards had maximum wait times of 17 hours and 19 hours.
At NHS Orkney, however, the longest wait time was 2 hours and 25 minutes. At NHS Shetland it was eight hours.
Mr Cole-Hamilton added: ‘So far this SNP and Green government has failed to put in place a proper NHS recovery plan and even refused to back Scottish Liberal Democrat proposals for a burnout prevention plan to alleviate the burden on staff. Instead they are pushing a divisive independence referendum and leaving our NHS to fall into disrepair.’
Joanne Edwards, director of acute services at NHS Ayrshire and Arran, said: ‘During the Covid-19 pandemic and throughout 2020/21 we experienced very high pressure across all our health and care services. At times, we experienced a high demand for our unscheduled care services and our staff worked hard to assess and treat patients as quickly as possible.
‘Each patient attending our emergency departments is triaged on arrival and clinical teams prioritise our patients based on clinical need.
‘We are aware that, unfortunately, sometimes patients have waited longer than we would wish, and we apologise for that. We make continuous efforts to find ways to eliminate these delays and to provide care within the waiting times standards.’
A spokesman for NHS Grampian said: ‘It is always our aim to assess and either treat, admit or refer to another service, every individual who attends an Emergency Department as quickly and safely as possible.
‘While the pressure on NHS services is well understood, extremely excessive waits such as this are very unusual. Our dedicated staff teams work hard and provide excellent care.’
Although the latest FoI figures relate to 2020/21, more recent statistics have shown that patients are still experiencing long waits in A&E departments.
The latest A&E waiting times figures show there were 27,846 patients in the week to June 5.
However, only 69.6 per cent, or 19,380, were seen within the Government target of four hours, while 2,052 patients spent more than 8 hours waiting and 602 patients spent more than 12 hours waiting.
A report from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) said A&E delays have contributed to 240 avoidable deaths this year.
Dr John Thomson, vice-president of the RCEM in Scotland, said: ‘Up to mid-March we have had 240 already this year. Patients waiting greater than 24 hours is now becommentation ing increasingly common throughout Scotland.’
Last night the Scottish Government said it was working to tackle waiting times. A spokesman said: ‘The Covid-19 pandemic continues to put pressure on hospitals and services. Despite this, more than two-thirds of patients are being seen in our A&E departments within the four-hour target.
‘Our new Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative [scheme] for Health Boards, supported by £50 million, will support the impleof a range of measures to reduce A&E waiting times and improve patient experience. This includes alternatives to hospitalbased treatment. Scotland continues to have the best performing A&Es in the UK, outperforming those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland for over six years.’
Yesterday Mr Yousaf came under fire from Scottish Labour, which claimed that more than 120,000 patients have ended up back in hospital within a week of being discharged in the past four years.
Figures obtained by the party from health boards show that, since 2018, at least 128,151 patients had to return to hospital within a week of being sent home.
Labour said the number could be ‘significantly higher’ because NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was unable to provide the requested data.
Jackie Baillie, the party’s health spokesman, said: ‘It’s clear for all to see that under the SNP the relationship between our NHS and social care system is broken.
‘For years, thousands of patients have found themselves back in hospital within only a week of their original discharge. This is wholly unacceptable.’
‘Greater than 24 hours is increasingly common’