A&E performance dips in Scotland

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The performance of Scotland’s core A&E departments dipped to one of its lowest levels at the start of January.

Against a target of 95 per cent of all emergency patients being treated and discharged within four hours, 87.9 per cent were seen across Scotland in the first week of 2017.

This is slightly down on the first week of 2016, when it was 88 per cent.

The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow recorded its worst figure since it opened in 2015 of 74.8 per cent.

Since December the number of people waiting over 8 hours to be seen rose from 75 to 454, and the number waiting over 12 hours rose from 6 to 101.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said hospitals were coping well despite increased demand.

“While there are undoubtedly seasonal pressures on our frontline healthcare services at the moment, the latest available data shows Scotland's hospitals are performing 10 percentage points better than England's and 15 percentage points better than Wales,” she said.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said: “Simply pointing fingers at health systems elsewhere will not cut it.

“Ministers have to explain why there's no improvement in this performance, and what they intend to do about it.”

Scottish Labour's health spokesman, Anas Sarwar, said the 434 patients a day had waited over the four hours who “won't be satisfied by the SNP pointing to England”.

“It is painfully clear our NHS staff are struggling to cope with demand, but the SNP slashing budgets will just pile on the pressure,” he said.

The number of patients delayed waiting in hospital for discharge into a community setting – also known as bed-blocking – fell from 1,576 to 1,509.