Scottish A&E waiting times reach new record high

The Scottish government's target is for 95% of A&E patients to be discharged or admitted within four hours

More patients waited longer at Scotland's A&Es than any previous week, according to the latest figures.

The Public Health Scotland statistics, for the week-ending 3 July, show 9,108 patients waited longer than the four-hour target.

The figures show just 64.9% of A&E patients were seen within the Scottish government's target time.

A government spokesman said a large surge in Covid cases, as well as school holidays, had led to staff shortages.

But opposition politicians criticised the figures and said the NHS was in crisis.

The stats also revealed 3,090 patients waited more than eight hours and 1,153 waited more than 12 hours.

Both of these numbers were the worst since weekly stats began in 2015.

The Scottish government has a target of dealing with 95% of A&E patients within four hours, which has not been met since July 2020.

It began publishing weekly A&E statistics in February 2015 over concerns that the figure had dropped to 86%.

• The state of Scotland's NHS in five charts

The latest figures are the worst on record on all measures.

The previous lowest rate for meeting the four-hour target was 66.2% at the end of March.

Figures for the end of June showed the previous record number of patients waiting more than four hours was 8,993.

Underlying problems

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Craig Hoy said the latest figures should be "a new source of shame" for Health Secretary Humza Yousaf

"Despite the heroic efforts of our frontline NHS staff, more and more patients are suffering increasingly lengthy waits as a result of his failures," he said.

"The health secretary has been asleep at the wheel and has refused to accept that his NHS recovery plan has failed to fix the problems in our NHS."

Scottish Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said the crisis in A&E was deepening.

"While frontline NHS staff work tirelessly around the clock, Humza Yousaf has completely failed to make any meaningful attempt to address the underlying problems or control this crisis," she said.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: "Week after week we are seeing NHS patients and staff in need of new hope, but little significant action from this SNP-Green government to provide it."

'Covid-related absences'

A Scottish government spokesperson said: "These statistics relate to the peak of the current wave we are experiencing.

"In the four weeks leading up to Sunday 3 July, there was an over 100% increase in Covid-related staff absences. This is coming at a time when we have increased numbers of staff on well-deserved leave during school holidays.

"Over the last two years, our NHS has suffered the biggest shock of its 74-year existence. Despite this, Scotland continues to have the best performing A&Es in the UK."

The waiting times in England are not published weekly.

The latest figures, for the month of May, showed 73% of patients were seen within four hours, the same as Scotland's figure for that month.

However, the figure for type 1 A&Es, the largest Casualty departments, at just 60.2%, was much lower than Scottish equivalent (69.9%).