A&E waiting times improve

More than 95% of patients in Scotland’s core accident and emergency departments were seen, admitted or discharged within four hours.

Figures published by ISD Scotland for the week ending 2 July show that performance was 95.1% - up from 94.5% the previous week.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said:

“I’d like to thank all the health and social care staff who have contributed to the good performance seen in A&E departments over this week. Scotland has had the best performing emergency departments in the UK for more than two years. This has only been possible thanks to the hard work of NHS and social care workers.

“We are seeing progress across Scotland and it is encouraging that these latest weekly statistics show performance above the four hour standard.

“However, we know that the challenge is to ensure that we maintain this target on a consistent basis, as performance can fluctuate from week to week.

“That is why we are continuing to work closely with boards to take action to minimise long waits and improve patient flow through hospitals and into community care. This has been backed by an additional £9 million of investment to help fund this work and I am confident that it will lead to sustained improvements.”

Background

The six essential actions for improving unscheduled care are:

• Clinical focussed and empowered hospital management.
• Hospital capacity and patient flow realignment.
• Patient, rather than bed management.
• Medical and surgical processes arranged to improve patient flow through the unscheduled care pathway.
• Seven day services appropriately targeted to reduce variation in weekend and out of hours working
• Ensuring patients are optimally cared for in their own homes or a homely setting.