The latest figures released by the Scottish Government show thousands of patients waited more than eight hours in accident and emergency departments last year.
However, it is to be noted that the government’s – shall we call it ‘information management’, has focused on an improvement in the number of patients waiting below four hours.
Statistics in the same report reveal that more patients than ever are arriving at causality departments and not being seen for more than eight hours.
The Scottish Government’s press release this morning had First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon , speaking at Edinburh Royal Infirmary, saying that there was more work [unspecified] to be done and higblighting only that A&E performance figures improved to their best level since weekly figures were first published [this began nine weeks ago on 3rd March 2015], citing 93.5%of patients are being treated and then either discharged or admitted within four hours at core A&E sites.
Ms Sturgeon neglected to mention that the same statistical report showed that, in 2014/15, more than 15,000 patients waited more than eight hours to be seen at A&E. This is compared to more than 6,000 in 2013/14; and around 4,000 five years ago.
This is a cataclysmic rise of 150% in very long waiting times in the single year between 2013/14 and 2014/15.
It is also a rise of 275% in these very long waiting times in the last five years.
Those condemned to superlong waits of over 12 hours in A&E in 2014/15 numbered than 2,400 patients, compared to more than 600 in 2013/14 and around 590 five years ago. This is a rise of 300% in a single year; and a rise of little more than that [306.8% ] in five years – showing just how disastrously the performance in Scotland’s A&E departments has been.
The irony here is that this is the Government whose 56 party MPs are off to Westminster to campaign for - improvements to NHS England? What’s that old saw about first removing the beam from one’s own eye?
Since 2008, there has been a 70,000 increase in those seeking emergency care – even although the SNP pledged to reduce that figure. Experts predicted that this figure would continue to rise until 2020 by as much as 13.5 %
As a result, earlier this year the then health secretary Alex Neil, announced emergency funds in an attempt to deal with the deteriorating performance.
While it is good to see the four hour waiting times improve, it is of extreme concern, however, to see the longer waits of over 8 hours – and over 12 hours – extended to such a high percentage.
This is a serious service failure which it is hard, on the evidence of the marked disimprovement in the single year 2014-15, to dissociate from the Scottish Government’s overriding preoccupation then [and continuing today] with political posturing outside Scotland – to the evidenced detriment of key services – also including education, policing, and justice within Scotland.
This troubling oerformance also has to be seen in the context of a 0.9% cut in spending on the Scottish NHS, although unspent funding had been granted for substantial increases.
