By Lucy Ashton
MSP Dame Jackie Baillie has slammed the Scottish Government over failing the nation’s NHS as figures show A&E performance plummeted over the festive period.
Maybe you broke your ankle on the skating pond, cut yourself badly while carving the turkey or slipped on ice in the street.
NHS data shows that just 48.8 per cent – less than half – of patients who attended at the Royal Alexandra Hospital’s emergency department in the week up to Hogmanay were seen within four hours.
Of the 1,004 people who attended at A&E, 518 waited more than four hours.
The figure dropped from the 56.1 per cent admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in the week until Christmas Eve.
Only slightly more people attended this year than last, with 972 people attending at the emergency department in the week until Christmas Day 2022.
Figures for those attending at A&E over the festive period generally remain lower than before the pandemic.
Since 2007, the Scottish Government’s own targets have demanded that 95 per cent of people attending A&E are treated in line with the four-hour standard.
But the target has rarely been met in Scotland since before the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
In September, the figure seen in line with the four-hour target at the RAH had increased to just 65.3 per cent.
Last January, at the height of the NHS struggle to reboot following the pandemic and in the face of a winter pressures crisis, 58.3 per cent of patients were treated against the four-hour timeframe.
The Scottish Government unveiled its Health and Social Care: Winter Preparedness Plan 2023 – 2024 in October, which sought to ensure that: “people in Scotland receive safe and timely access to health and social care services and supports over winter” and boasted of “earlier engagement and planning for winter than ever before”.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s winter planning has included an emphasis on telling residents of the board area that they should have their relatives ‘Home for Lunch’, as part of a new campaign.
Dumbarton constituency MSP Jackie, left, Scottish Labour’s Spokesperson for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, said: “Despite repeated assurances and the publication of an NHS Recovery Plan, the SNP has failed to support our hardworking staff and failed to get a grip on the situation facing our NHS this winter.
“The NHS Recovery Plan is failing like the Scottish Government. Patients continue to face long waits at A&E, long waits for operations and long waits to see GPs and staff continue to work hard without sufficient support.
“Despite this, the SNP has stuck to the rhetoric about recovery but there’s no need to be a qualified doctor to see that their plan is not worth the paper it is written on.
“It is time for change before Scotland’s NHS is increasingly unable to function properly.”