A&E Waiting Time Target Met For Second Week

Scotland's accident and emergency (A&E) departments have collectively met a key waiting time target for a second week running, but four health boards are still falling short.

The latest weekly figures show 95.2% of patients were seen and then admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in the week ending July 19.

The Scottish Government has set an interim goal of treating 95% of people in four hours in advance of meeting the full target of 98%.

A total of 56 patients spent more than eight hours in A&E while six people spent more than 12 hours in the department over the week.

NHS Forth Valley was the poorest performing health board, with 83.9% of patients seen within the time frame, followed by NHS Lanarkshire on 94.1%.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde narrowly missed the target with a performance rate of 94.7%, while in NHS Shetland 94.6% of people were treated within four hours.

A spokeswoman for NHS Forth Valley said: This was a difficult week with a number of particularly challenging days and we are very sorry that some patients experienced longer waits.

While we met the four-hour A&E target the previous week and our emergency department waiting times have significantly improved in recent days, we recognise that we must do more to improve the consistency of our performance and work is already under way to address this.''