MINISTERS are being urged to address the “crisis” in Scotland’s accident and emergency departments as new figures showed that three out of 10 patients waited longer than the four-hour target time in the first full week of June.
Of the 27,034 patients who attended A&E in the week ending June 12, a total of 69.2% were seen and either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
The Scottish Government has set the target of having 95% of all patients dealt with within four hours.
However, the latest weekly figures showed there were 8335 patients who were there for longer than that.
This included 2235 who were there for eight hours or more, with 761 spending 12 hours or more in A&E.
The figures, published by Public Health Scotland, showed just two health boards met the 95% target – with NHS Western Isles and NHS Shetland dealing with 99.1% and 95.8% of patients within four hours respectively.
In NHS Forth Valley, which has just one hospital with A&E facilities, just under half (49.7%) of patients were either admitted, transferred or discharged within the target time.
Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, meanwhile, dealt with 47.5% of patients within the four-hour limit, while at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary 48.5% of patients were treated within the target time.
Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “These dire figures represent thousands of people left in pain for hours on end and hundreds of lives put at risk.”
