Yesterday (15th December) we covered a story by BBC News, which gave details of figures showing accident and emergency (A&E) departments in the UK are struggling to hit waiting time targets this winter.
Today (16th December) it has been reported that MSPs have questioned if the target for Scotland’s A&E waiting times is “reasonable or achievable”.
As it stands, NHS boards are expected to see to 98% of patients who attend A&E departments within four hours. However, latest figures for September show that this target was met only for 93.5% of patients and now, public audit committee members at Holyrood have called on ministers to review the national standard.
The Scottish government said it was continuing in its efforts to reduce current waiting times and announced an extra £10m to support health boards who must cope with extra pressures during the winter months.
Convener Hugh Henry said: “To have five of the 14 health boards failing to meet the interim 95% target on time is disappointing to say the least, especially when only three NHS boards are meeting the 98% standard set by the Scottish government.
“However, there is always a clinical need to balance speed of care with quality of care and we agree with the AGS (Auditor General Scotland) that waiting times for an A&E department can be an important indicator of pressure on the health system as a whole.
“Against this backdrop, and with the majority of boards failing to meet the set standard, we question whether that standard remains reasonable or achievable.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish government said: “We want to ensure that people are treated as quickly as possible in our A&Es and our unscheduled care action plan has already delivered a significant reduction in patients waiting long periods in A&E, and fewer than 1% of all patients waited longer than 8 hours in the most recent statistics. Nevertheless, we will continue to strive to reduce this further and improve the experiences of people attending A&E.
“We have made an additional £10m available to health boards to assist with seasonal pressures over winter and to tackle the key issue of delayed discharge. The Winter Resilience Fund comes on top of an £18.2m investment by the Scottish government to help ease the pressure on Scotland’s NHS over the winter months.”