Scottish NHS in 'perpetual crisis' as 30 per cent of A&E patients left waiting longer than four hours

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The NHS in Scotland is in a state of "perpetual crisis" as many of those attending A&E wards are still left waiting hours to be seen, Labour has warned.

The Scottish Government target is for patients to be seen and discharged or admitted to hospital within four hours - but last week 30 per cent of the total faced even longer waits.

The figure is the same as the week ending May 15, though the number of attendances at Scottish A&E units increased slightly.There were 27,091 attendances in the most recent figures, up from 26,979 in the previous week.For the week ending May 22, 1,981 patients were waiting longer than eight hours and 649 waited longer than 12 hours.Compliance with the four-hour waiting time standard has been below 80 per cent since the start of the year.Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour's health spokeswoman, said: "Despite warning after warning, SNP failure has turned a Winter A&E crisis into a perpetual crisis which is set to persist. "Day in, day out hundreds of Scots are put in danger due to the government’s catastrophic failure to support front-line staff."These are not mere numbers – these are thousands of our fellow citizens.

This simply cannot be allowed to continue – if it does lives will be lost."Humza Yousaf needs to end his dangerous inaction and act to support heroic A&E staff."Alex Cole-Hamilton, Scottish Lib Dem leader, said: "Waiting times in our A&E departments flatlining at such a low level shows the need for urgent action from Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf."Staff and patients cannot be left to continually suffer under these conditions.