By Lucy Ashton
Action must be taken now to tackle ‘dangerous and deadly’ A&E waiting times, Scottish Labour has warned, as 2023 closed with appallingly long waiting times.
Statistics published this morning have shown that for the week ending 31st December 2023, a shocking 39.2 per cent of attendances at A&E waited longer than the 4-hour A&E access standard.
As a result, thousands spent hours of their holiday week languishing in A&E waiting on vital treatment and care.
The situation was particularly bad in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh where only 40.4 per cent of patients were seen within four hours, with 1,200 people waiting longer than the access standard.
With Scotland’s overheated NHS still deep in winter, Scottish Labour is demanding that the SNP government wake up to the deadly and dangerous situation in A&E and act to bring down waits.
Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie, right, said: “As 2023 ended, we were left with an A&E system in utter disarray and thousands of Scots experiencing long and dangerous waits.
“We simply cannot have a perpetual crisis in our NHS with patients and staff paying the price of government inaction.
“Our A&E staff have worked tirelessly over the holiday period to treat those in need of care but they are being left high and dry by an SNP government more interested in playing fantasy politics than dealing with the crisis in our NHS.
Meanwhile, responding to new Public Health Scotland figures which show that 1,910 people were stuck in hospital due to a delayed discharge in November, an increase from 1,815 in October, Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “As we begin another new year the SNP’s neglect and mismanagement of health and social care is still leaving far too many people stuck in hospital.
“People are in limbo. They should never have to wait weeks or months on a care home place or help to return home. There are gaps everywhere and the situation is as bad as ever.
“Yet this government still expects patients and staff to wait years for the wrong solution in the form of a ministerial takeover of social care.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats would see that billion-pound bureaucracy scrapped and ensure that the money is spent on frontline staff and services instead.”