Targets missed at Wishaw A&E dept
Pressure on team
Damning figures showed University Hospital Wishaw’s A&E department missed its government target 49 times in the last 12 months.
For the whole of 2018, Wishaw has only managed to achieve its 95 per cent Scottish Government weekly target three times - in March and twice in May.
The figures come as an NHS Lanarkshire chief urged people to only attend hospital emergency departments if they require urgent and immediately necessary treatment.
Frances Dodd, NHS Lanarkshire Acute Divisional Nurse Director, said: “All of our hospitals are extremely busy following the festive period.
“Our emergency department staff work hard to ensure patients who need urgent care are seen and treated as quickly as possible.
“For those who do not need urgent treatment, there is a range of health professionals and services readily available in the community including pharmacists, minor injuries nurses, dentists and optometrists.
“All of these health experts can provide advice and treatment for a variety of minor injuries and illnesses right away, helping to avoid long waits in the emergency department.”
The latest NHS figures showed that for the week ending December 30, which included the Christmas period, 85.7 per cent of the 1334 patients were seen within the four hour target. That figure is 9.3 per cent below the target of 95 per cent.
Twenty patients were forced to wait more than eight hours while two waited more than 12 hours.
The numbers waiting longer than four hours in A&E in NHS Lanarkshire increased by 8.7 per cent on the previous year.
A total of 1916 patients waited over eight hours.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said the figures were evidence of the stress the health service is under, with overworked staff facing crowded A& E departments because the NHS is not being given the resources it needs. The NHS plea comes as figures revealed the huge number of patients seen by A&E doctors and nurses over the past month.
Hard working A&E staff at Wishaw saw more than 5,500 patients over the month of December.
The latest NHS figures showed that for the week ending December 30, which included the Christmas period, 85.7 per cent of the 1334 patients were seen within the four-hour target.
That figure is 9.3 per cent below the target of 95 per cent.
Twenty patients were forced to wait more than eight hours while two waited more than 12 hours.
The 85.7 per cent figure is considerably less than the other two acute NHS Lanarkshire hospitals.
Monklands A&E’S figure was 94.1 per cent while Hairmyres in East Kilbride figure was 90.8 per cent.
For the week ending December 23, 92.9 per cent of 1,340 patients were seen within four hours at Wishaw.
Over the past eight weeks, Wishaw has only been above 90 per cent with the figure of the week ending December 2 being only 75.2 per cent.
On that week, 75 people waited eight hours to be treated with 11 waiting more than 12 hours.
For the whole of 2018, Wishaw has only managed to achieve its 95 per cent target three times - in March and twice in May.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: “Patients and staff in NHS Lanarkshire deserve much better than hours of delays and long waits for treatment.
“We already know that staff do not feel they are getting enough support and that the level of unfilled health posts is unsustainable.
“Ministers set the health service targets to hit and then do not deliver the support and resources needed to achieve them. It simply isn’t good enough.”