New Glasgow Hospital Missing A&E Waiting Target
South Glasgow University Hospital towards the bottom of the latest figures on Accident & Emergency performance.
The Scottish Government has again been challenged over the performance of hospital accident and emergency (A&E) departments, with new figures showing waiting-times targets still not being met.
Clyde News can reveal Scotland’s newest hospital has one of the poorest records for meeting Accident and Emergency treatment targets.
In the first week of monitoring the South Glasgow University treated only 83 per-cent of A&E patients within four hours in the first week of monitoring.
The target is 95 per-cent and the Scottish average was 92.8 per-cent – whilst NHS England met the 95 per-cent target.
Across Scotland the latest statistics showed that of the 134,713 patients who went to A&E for medical help in April, 92.8% were dealt with in four hours or less.
A total of 839 patients had to wait more than eight hours to be either admitted to hospital, transferred or discharged, while 136 were kept waiting for 12 hours or longer.
Meanwhile, for the week ending May 24, medical staff cared for 92% of patients within the four-hour target time.
The Scottish Government previously set a target of having 98% of A&E patients treated within fours hours and has put in place an interim target of 95% to help achieve this. But Labour said the target has now not been met for 294 weeks.
Holyrood health spokeswoman Jenny Marra said: The Scottish Government has squeezed the NHS budget in Scotland even harder than Westminster and we are seeing the results in missed target after missed target while A&E departments in England are starting to hit their targets for patient waiting times.
"This comes only a week after we saw missed targets on delayed discharge, key clinical tests, the treatment-time guarantee and more.
"NHS staff are doing all they can to deliver the care that patients deserve but after eight years of this Scottish Government, progress on waiting times should be much better."
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Jim Hume also voiced concerns, saying:
"Today's figures show that overall performance has remained static with 92% of people being seen within four hours.
"There were fewer admissions to A&E departments but this was not paired with an increase in performance.
"This is unacceptable and the minister must get to grips with Scotland's A&E waiting-times fiasco."
He added: "Staff in our A&E departments are working incredibly hard and under immense pressure, but the SNP Government continues to fail health boards by trying to sweep problems under the carpet instead of tackling the issues underlying the causes of Scotland's A&E crisis head on.
"SNP ministers must listen to the experts and give NHS staff the support they need to get ahead of these pressures."
Health Secretary Shona Robison said the figures showed weekly A&E performance was "remaining steady", with some improvement over the period March to April.
She stated: "The monthly figure has improved by nearly six percentage points since January - showing that our NHS staff are continuing to work hard towards delivering a first-class service for Scotland.
"Furthermore, weekly performance has remained stable with 92% of patients being seen, treated and discharged or admitted within four hours.
"Long waits over eight hours have significantly lessened by over 75% since weekly reporting began in February."
Ms Robison said: "It is vital that, with ongoing support from the Scottish Government, health boards build on improvements made since the winter and continue to perform well across Scotland to ensure they are in the best position heading into next winter - while focusing on sustaining the reduced waiting times we have recently seen and moving towards meeting our world leading targets.
"The launch of the new six essential actions approach to improving unscheduled care last month couldn't be more timely and, with the appointment of our national and local teams, will support further improvements over the summer period.
"The six essential actions have already underpinned improvements in a number of health boards and will work to minimise long waits in A&E.
"It will also 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 and will ensure the whole NHS system works together effectively.
"This approach is being supported centrally and locally with staff dedicated to improve patient care and flow."