Orkney and Shetland Labour
20 August 2019
The SNP government's flagship Accident and Emergency (A&E) waiting time target has been broken nearly 100,000 times so far this year, official figures confirm.
Patients are expected to be seen, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival at A&E.
Analysis of official figures from ISD Scotland by Scottish Labour shows this key waiting time target has been broken 99,362 times this year up until the week ending 11 August.
Patients were left to wait more than eight hours on more than 10,000 occasions while some were forced to endure waits of over 12 hours on 2,110 occasions, waits equivalent to a nurse's entire shift.
The dangers of these long waits for treatment was recently underlined by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine who warned "longer waiting in Emergency Departments can lead to negative patient outcomes and avoidable mortality.”
Scottish Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, Monica Lennon MSP, said:
"Too many people are having to endure unacceptably long waits at Accident and Emergency departments across Scotland almost every day.
"This is not the fault of our doctors and nurses, this is the fault of the Health Secretary who has chronically under-resourced our NHS.
"This key waiting time target has not been met on a single occasion since she took office, and it’s a monumental failure.
"Jeane Freeman should apologise to the thousands of people who have been forced to endure long waits to get the help they needed."
The SNP government's flagship Accident and Emergency (A&E) waiting time target has been broken nearly 100,000 times so far this year, official figures confirm.
Patients are expected to be seen, transferred or discharged within four hours of arrival at A&E.
Analysis of official figures from ISD Scotland by Scottish Labour shows this key waiting time target has been broken 99,362 times this year up until the week ending 11 August.
Patients were left to wait more than eight hours on more than 10,000 occasions while some were forced to endure waits of over 12 hours on 2,110 occasions, waits equivalent to a nurse's entire shift.
The dangers of these long waits for treatment was recently underlined by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine who warned "longer waiting in Emergency Departments can lead to negative patient outcomes and avoidable mortality.”
Scottish Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, Monica Lennon MSP, said:
"Too many people are having to endure unacceptably long waits at Accident and Emergency departments across Scotland almost every day.
"This is not the fault of our doctors and nurses, this is the fault of the Health Secretary who has chronically under-resourced our NHS.
"This key waiting time target has not been met on a single occasion since she took office, and it’s a monumental failure.
"Jeane Freeman should apologise to the thousands of people who have been forced to endure long waits to get the help they needed."