Incoming first minister John Swinney challenged to act on A&E waits

Incoming first minister John Swinney is being urged to take “meaningful action” to tackle waiting times in accident and emergency – as new figures showed the number of patients waiting longer than the target time reached its highest total for more than a year in March.

The latest data from Public Health Scotland (PHS) showed A&E departments dealt with 135,207 patients in March – with just over two thirds (67.4%) of them being either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

However there were 44,061 patients who spent longer than the target time in A&E over the course of the month – the highest total since December 2022.

The statistics for March also showed more than one in 10 patients (11%) took eight hours or more to be either admitted, transferred or discharged, with a total of 14,615 people in this category.

There were also 5,816 patients – representing 4.4% cases in A&E – who were there for at least 12 hours.

The Scottish Government has set the target of having 95% of all patients in A&E being admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

Public Health Scotland said however that compliance with this target has “been below 80% since summer 2021”.

Separate figures covering the last week of April showed of the 26,359 patients who attended at A&E, 64.5% were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours – down from 65.8% the previous week.

A total of 9,361 patients waited more than four hours in the week ending April 28 – with this including 3,263 patients who were there for eight hours or more and 1,500 patients who were there for at least half a day.

Current Health Secretary Neil Gray accepted that waiting times are “longer than we want them to be for too many patients”.

He said: “The pressure being felt by our A&E departments is not unique to Scotland, with similar challenges being felt by right across the UK.”

Mr Gray added the Scottish Government was continuing to “work collaboratively with health boards to develop services, support sustained improvement and reduce A&E waits”.

He went on: “The 2024-25 Scottish Budget provides more than £19.5 billion for health and social care and an extra £500 million for frontline boards. An initial investment of £30 million in the NHS, the first instalment of a £300 million investment over three years, will target reductions to pandemic backlogs and patients waiting the longest time.”

But Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton insisted incoming first minister John Swinney must act.

The Lib Dem said: “With a new First Minister taking office this week, this needs to be a turning point for the crisis in our A&E departments.

“Patients and staff alike deserve better than the SNP mismanagement they have had to put up with for years on end.

“We need to finally see meaningful action taken to reverse this situation, not just more hot air from the SNP government.”

Scottish Conservative health spokesperson Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “A&E departments are in permanent crisis on the SNP’s watch and they have no plan to fix this situation.

“Waiting times are continuing to get worse even as we now enter May, with more and more patients suffering potentially deadly delays due to SNP inaction.”

Dr Gulhane, who works as a GP while also serving as an MSP, blamed “dire workforce planning” from this Scottish Government for this, along with the “flimsy” Covid recovery plan.

The Tory said it was now “the shocking norm that over a third of patients have to wait over four hours to be seen”.

Dr Gulhane said: “It is deeply alarming that 1,500 patients waited over half a day to be treated despite the best efforts of my dedicated colleagues.

“Rather than continuing to push for independence at every turn, John Swinney should be relentlessly focusing on cutting NHS waiting times.”