PATIENTS are waiting longer for treatment in Scotland’s accident and emergency departments, with one in four facing delays of up to 90 minutes before being seen by a doctor.
They face further delays if they need to be admitted to the same hospital after being treated in A&E departments.
The disclosure is more bad news on the health front for the Scottish Executive which spends about £8 billion on the NHS north of the border — 20 per cent more per head of population than in England.
The figures come from a survey carried out over three days in April, when 11,000 patients attended accident and emergency departments across Scotland.
Malcolm Chisholm, Scotland’s Health Minister, admitted that they were unacceptable and promised more money to ease problems in A&E departments.
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Nine out of ten so-called “trolley cases” were given a quick preliminary assessment within 15 minutes, a similar time to previous surveys. But nine out of ten “walking wounded”, those not arriving by ambulance, were given a similar assessment within 28 minutes, three minutes longer than in previous surveys.
About half of the trolley cases were seen by a doctor in the A&E department within 30 minutes, consistent with previous surveys. For the walking wounded, however, the average waiting time was 46 minutes, compared with 30 to 40 minutes in previous surveys. A quarter of walking wounded had to wait up to 90 minutes before being seen by a doctor, higher than in previous surveys.
The figures also show that patients treated in A&E departments who need to be admitted to the same hospital after their treatment are having to wait longer for beds. Last year 90 per cent of them would have waited for 64 minutes before being admitted but this has grown to 91 minutes.
Mr Chisholm said preparations were almost complete for a programme to cut down delays and he announced £5 million is to be spent by the NHS’s Centre for Change and Innovation to work with staff over the next three years to find solutions. “It is completely unacceptable that patients should face lengthy and unnecessary waits,” he said.
The A&E statistics overshadowed the release of the quarterly figures for waiting in the NHS in Scotland, which contained at least some good news for ministers.
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No one waiting for inpatient or day-case treatment with a treatment guarantee had waited longer than the national standard of nine months. The number of patients with a guarantee who were waiting more than six months at the end of June was 6,161 — well down on the 9,974 waiting at the same time last year, but slightly up on the previous three months.
But the average waiting time for all patients admitted for inpatient or day-case treatment was 43 days, five days longer than the same period last year.
The A&E statistics prompted the Opposition parties to attack the Executive — and, in particular, Mr Chisholm — claiming that there was a lack of urgency in tackling the delays in the sector.
Shona Robison, the Scottish National Party’s Shadow Health Minister, said that the A&E figures showing a quarter of all walking wounded waiting more than 1½ hours to see a doctor were not good enough.
She said: “For years, we have heard successive Labour health ministers promise to reduce waiting times in the health service. For years, we have watched as they have gone up. Now waiting times in A&E are on the rise.
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“Despite this, listening to Malcolm Chisholm today, you would not think he understood the urgency required.
“He is taking his all too familiar laissez faire approach and talks of taking the next three years to work out what to do. That’s not good enough.”
David Davidson, health spokesman for the Scottish Tories, said: “The most worrying aspect of this is the unbelievable complacency of the government and Malcolm Chisholm.”