Waits over 4 hours slammed by MSP

Labour’s Sarwar declares it’s ‘unacceptable’

A total of 226 patients waiting more than four hours at A& E across the county between Christmas and New Year has been described as“unnaceptable”.

Labour’s Anas Sarwar hit out after 80 people waited over four hours at Wishaw General Hospital in the week ending January 1.

A total of 1212 people attended Wishaw General Hospital’s A&E over the festive period. And 93.4 per cent of them were seen within four hours, below the government’s 95 per cent target.

Three of them had to wait more than eight hours to be treated.

A total of 3606 people visited a Lanarkshire’s three emergency departments in the week ending January 1 and 93.7 per cent were seen within four hours.

Anas Sarwar, Labour’s health spokesman said: “The SNP are sleepwalking into an NHS crisis and are in denial about their mismanagement of it.

“It is unacceptable that more than 200 patients waiting too long at A&E.

“NHS staff are being let down by an SNP government that would rather stick its head in the sand than deal with the real problems.

“The NHS crisis in England shows you can’t trust the Tories with the NHS, but it is shameful that the SNP use that as an excuse to spin away its failures.

“The answer to this crisis is to properly invest in social care to take pressure off the hospitals in the first place. Instead, the SNP plan to pass on £327 million of cuts to local budgets and have short-changed NHS Lanarkshire by millions.”

Wishaw MSP Clare Adamson said: “There are always winter pressure on the NHS and I want to thank staff for their hard work during these times of pressure. “Under the SNP, the NHS are seeing record levels of investment, with the budget increasing £500m above inflation during this Parliament. “That’s why A&E performance in Scotland is 10 per cent higher than elsewhere in the UK during the busy winter period. With the percentage of people seen within four hours in Lanarkshire even higher than the Scottish average this shows that our support is proving effective in our three hospitals.”

Heather Knox, NHS Lanarkshire’s director of acute services, said: “We experienced much higher levels of activity within our emergency departments in December with more than 1000 additional attendances compared to last year.

“Despite this increase we have improved our performance against the four-hour target. We have seen an overall improvement in our unscheduled care waiting time performance over the last 18 months and it is encouraging that we have sustained this improvement during this traditionally challenging time.

“We have a robust plan in place to enable us to continue to provide high-quality care over the winter.

“We prepare for increased activity during this period by increasing capacity in terms of beds and staff and our hospitals also work together as a clinical network. This means that patients are seen, treated and, where required, admitted to a hospital bed as efficiently as possible. Patients can help staff by using the range of services that offer an alternative to A&E. Full details can be found on our website (www. nhslanarkshire. org. uk/ Services/ Know- Who-To-Turn-To/ Pages/ default.aspx).

“Pharmacists can offer advice and over-the-counter treatments for a range of minor illnesses and optometrists should be your first port of call for any eye problem.”

Pharmacists can offer advice and over the counter treatments for a range of minor illnesses . . . Heather Knox, NHS