More than 90% of Lothian A & E patients seen within four hours
Scotland’s core accident and emergency departments saw 88.8 per cent of patients within four hours over the challenging Christmas and New Year period. NHS Lothian outperformed the national average, recording a 93.4% figure.
The figures which have been reported to the Government by NHS boards, outline performance at A&E departments between December 22 to January 4.
Boards have also reported one of the key challenges over this period has been the number of admissions to hospital, reflecting the fact that more seriously ill people are presenting at A&E.
Health Secretary Shona Robison said:
“The winter months bring increased pressure on the heath service and these figures show that this year’s Christmas period was a particularly challenging time for our A&E services and across our NHS.
“It is clear we must improve our performance – both in winter and year round – which is why we’ll go on increasing investment, improving systems and protecting staffing levels.
“Health board staff across Scotland have been working extremely hard to meet this demand and ensure long waits in A&E are minimised – and for this they have our thanks.
“However, across many health boards, delayed discharge is having a significant impact on the flow of patients through hospital and boards have informed us there has been an increase in seriously ill people presenting at A&E, who need admitted to hospital.
“I have already stated that reducing delayed discharge is a top priority for this government and we are continuing to work with health boards and local authorities to ensure effective co-ordination so that these patients, who are often very frail, can either get home or into a homely setting as quickly as possible.
“While we have significantly reduced by two-thirds the number of patients who are delayed for longer than four weeks, we recognise that we must go further to ensure all patients are safely discharged as quickly as possible when they’re judged clinically fit enough.
“To help deliver this we’ve already legislated for the integration of health and social care from this April.
“Of course, more must be done to deliver sustainable change and we are working with partners to make sure this happens.
“We have also recently made £28 million available to support boards experiencing an increase in demand over the winter and ensure local plans are in place across Scotland, supported by this extra investment.
“This investment is enabling the creation of an extra 200 intermediate care beds across Scotland, expanding community capacity substantially. That means fewer people will be unnecessarily delayed in hospital, freeing up beds and easing the pressure on A&E.”
NHS England and NHS Scotland A&E core site/Type 1 performance Christmas period figures are:
4 Hour A&E Performance:
Country (2 Weeks Ending the 4th January 2015)
England (Type One Sites) 82.8%
Scotland (Core Sites) 88.8%
NHS Scotland A&E core site Performance Christmas period (unvalidated) figures are:
Scotland NHS Boards (Core Sites) – 2 Weeks Ending the 4th January 2015
Ayrshire & Arran 89.6%
Borders 89.0%
Dumfries & Galloway 96.3%
Fife 87.3%
Forth Valley 83.1%
Grampian 90.6%
Greater Glasgow & Clyde 82.6%
Highland 95.9%
Lanarkshire 89.4%
Lothian 93.4%
Shetland 97.5%
Tayside 98.1%
Western Isles 99.2%
Scotland (Core Sites) 88.8%
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