Lothian waiting time targets missed for first time in a year

Published on Wednesday 28 January 2009 09:02

AN unexpected rise in ambulance calls last month led to NHS Lothian missing its waiting time targets for the first time in a year.

Board members of NHS Lothian will today be told that a four per cent rise in casualty patients at the ERI meant 96 per cent were seen within the four-hour limit set by the Scottish Government.

This is in sharp contrast to a couple of months before, when the health board set a new record of seeing 98.3 per cent of patients within the allocated time slot.

Prolonged cold weather is being blamed for the rise in patients, an additional 340 compared to the same period last year.

Grahame Cumming, NHS Lothian's strategic programme manager (surgery), will today tell a meeting in North Berwick that the month of December was a blip, and the waiting times which have been constantly improving through the last 12 months will be back on track for January.

"Having continually delivered the A&E four-hour standard since January 2008, this was not met in full during December," he will say.

"The key contributing factor to this breach was a four per cent increase in the number of patients who attended the ERI A&E in that month compared to the same month in 2007.

"This meant that an additional 340 patients had to be seen, in part due to the effects of the prolonged freezing conditions that existed before Christmas."

Most targets in other areas of waiting times are being met by the health board. Everyone who was treated for breast cancer between July and September – the most recent timescale available – was seen within 62 days.

With a new Scottish Government target of 15 weeks for inpatient or day case operations coming in at the end of March, board members will be told that this, in fact, may be met by the end of this month in the Lothians.

Targets were met in other waiting times fields like urgent cancer referrals, hip fractures and diagnostics.

The Scottish Government said yesterday that more patients are to be accounted for in waiting times targets, with an 18-week referral-to-treatment aspiration to come in for those referred between consultants and specialists.

Public health minister Shona Robison said this "will significantly increase the number of patients who will for the first time be covered by a waiting time standard".