Weekly A&E performance

Accident & Emergency waiting times figures for the week ending March 1, show that 86.9 per cent of people were seen within four hours.

This is the second publication of weekly waiting times statistics for core sites across Scotland, with figures slightly up on last week when 86.1 per cent of people were seen within four hours.

The figures show that 11 out of 14 health boards treated around nine out of 10 people within four hours, with five treating more than 95 per cent of patients within this time frame.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said:

“Staff in Scotland’s NHS are doing a fantastic job to treat people as quickly as possible.

“Today’s figures show that we are continuing to see the challenging effect of winter, which has brought an increase in attendances and admissions, as well as more severe flu related illnesses and people with complex illnesses.

“However, we are starting to see signs of recovery, with performance slightly up on last week. It is also encouraging to see that health boards such as NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and NHS Ayrshire & Arran, which are both experiencing challenges, have improved on last week’s figures.”

Last week the Scottish Government confirmed it would continue to support areas experiencing challenges. This included committing £5 million from its £31.5 million Performance Fund to support improvement across NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde to relieve pressure at the front door of the hospital.

The Government has also expanded the role of the A&E performance support team, put into the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley in January, to support the Western Infirmary by building on lessons learned in Paisley and sharing good practice across all NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde sites.

This comes ahead of the move to the new £842 million South Glasgow Hospital in May. This will be the largest hospital in Scotland and will replace services at the Royal Hospital for Sick Kids at Yorkhill, the Southern General Hospital, Western and Victoria Infirmaries and Mansionhouse unit. The emergency and assessment capacity at the new hospital will be greater than the combined unscheduled care capacity of the Western, Victoria and Southern General hospitals.

Today’s figures show that the number of A&E patients being treated within four hours at the Royal Alexandra Hospital has increased from 75 per cent during the week ending February 22, up to 82.8 per cent during the week ending March 1.

Other sites in the west are also continuing to improve, including Monklands Hospital where the number of people seen within four hours has risen from 87.5 per cent in December 2014 to 95.8 per cent during the week ending March 1.

Ms Robison added:

“However, more clearly needs to be done to tackle the issues facing our NHS. We are determined to improve performance through a whole system approach, improving patient flow through-out their journey from admission to discharge.

“In January we also committed £100 million specifically to help health boards and local authorities tackle delayed discharge. This is both good for the patient and frees up beds to help people move out of A&E and through the system.

“This is in addition to our substantial, £50 million investment in an unscheduled care action plan and the roll-out of a new collaborative approach to unscheduled care across Scotland. This new approach will work to minimise long waits in A&E as well as look to ensure best practice is installed throughout the hospital system, supporting joined up work across health boards to address wider issues of patient flow through hospital.

“As we move towards the integration of health and social care in April, these are the right steps to take and I am determined to work with all health boards across the country to improve performance and ensure waits are brought down for patients. Our targets are rightly the most challenging in the UK but it means we need to work even harder to meet them.”