Scotland's A&E departments miss key waiting times targets
Accident and emergency departments in Scotland's hospitals missed a key waiting times target in October. A total of 94.7% of all patients were seen and either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours last month, down from 95.4% in September to miss the Scottish Government's interim target of 95%. The £842 million Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland's newest hospital, saw 84.3% of patients within the four-hour target. The monthly figures for October revealed there were 133,028 attendances at A&E services across Scotland. Just over 500 patients spent more than eight hours in an A&E department, while 76 were there for more than 12 hours. Weekly figures also published show 94.3% of patients were seen within four hours at core A&E sites during the week ending November 22. The figure is down slightly from the previous week when 94.4% were seen in the target time. Health Secretary Shona Robison said: "Although the figures are much better than the same time last year and progressively better than the rest of the UK over the last seven months, I am clear that there is more work to be done on A&E waiting times, in particular as we head into winter. "We know that the weekly performance figure can fluctuate, but it is encouraging to see that performance has remained stable and was more than three percentage points higher than the same week last year. "Of course, any long patient wait is unacceptable and health boards know that they must do everything they can to eradicate them.
"As we prepare to head into winter we have been working closely with health boards and stakeholders to put further measures in place.''