NHS Tayside has said its health and care services are coping well this winter.
Demands on healthcare are always higher over the colder winter months, adding more pressure on the cash-strapped health board.
However, NHS Tayside has said it has been working hard with Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership, as well as the partnerships in Dundee and Angus, to make sure services are keeping up with the increase in demand.
Between Monday, December 23 and Sunday, January 5, covering the busy Christmas and New Year holidays, 4191 patients were seen by the health board’s out-of-hours service, and a further 2730 attended A&E.
One of the ways in which the health board can measure how well it is coping with winter pressure is its A&E performance.
NHS Tayside has said it is continuing to work “really hard” to make sure people attending the region’s emergency departments, including at Perth Royal Infirmary, are seen as quickly as possible.
This work has seen NHS Tayside named as the best performing health board in the UK for emergency department waiting times.
Consistently, 95 per cent of patients at NHS Tayside’s A&Es were seen within the four-hour waiting target.
The latest weekly figure even saw that figure increase to 96.3 per cent.
Grant Archibald, chief executive of NHS Tayside, said: “I am extremely proud that NHS Tayside consistently achieves the four-hour target.
“This is a result of the dedicated staff within the emergency department and the wider multi-disciplinary teams right across the organisation and also our colleagues in the health and social care partnerships, councils and Scottish Ambulance Service.
“NHS Tayside has always performed well against national unscheduled care performance standards and we are all committed to maintaining and striving to improve this performance.”
He continued: “Last year’s winter plan details a whole system response to the additional demand.
“By investing in services and beds, improving access to care and changing the ways in which patients are assessed, admitted and discharged, we are maintaining services and responding to any challenges quickly.
“This means our patients are being seen quickly by the right person in the right place.”
The health board is also looking to strengthen its plans for its community teams.
It is hoped by improving the offering from the community teams, it can help prevent more people having to be admitted to hospital in the first place.
