Waiting times at Lothians A&E departments hit all-time low

Published on Tuesday 26 August 2008 13:53

WAITING times at accident and emergency departments in the Lothians is at an all-time low, new figures released today revealed.

The proportion of people waiting at A&E for less than four hours was 98.2 per cent in June, the best figures ever notched up by NHS Lothian.

It is a dramatic improvement from two years ago, when more than a fifth of patients were waiting for longer than four hours.

Although it is 0.1 per cent below the Scottish average, the national picture is obscured by smaller boards like Orkney having a 100 per cent record in meeting Holyrood guidelines, which in turn inflates the national mean.

Figures show that during June, 19,100 people came through the doors of the Capital's A&E departments, with only 352 having to wait longer than the four-hour benchmark.

The statistics showed that NHS Lothian's A&Es performed better than their counterparts in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Fife, Forth Valley and Lanarkshire, but behind Grampian and Tayside.

James McCaffery, chief operating officer for NHS Lothian, said: "This success is tribute to the hard work of our staff in emergency treatment departments across Lothian."

The 98.2 per cent figure also beats the national guidelines of 98 per cent.

Public health minister Shona Robison said: "Cutting waiting times is a clear priority for this Scottish Government to ensure patients get the treatment they need as quickly as possible. It is also important that they have a clear understanding of when they can expect to receive their treatment and our new ways of publishing waiting time statistics does just that."

The minister added: "The unprecedented levels of transparency offered by the new system means patients are no longer at risk of finding themselves banished to a hidden waiting list.

"Today's statistics, released by ISD Scotland, show an overall impressive performance from the NHS in Scotland, effectively meeting all our challenging national maximum waiting times targets.

"This is very good news for patients but it is not the end of the story."

Meanwhile a 'mystery shopping' style exercise across the country's sexual health clinics also found NHS Lothian to be performing well.

The study involved volunteers reporting to clinics at different times claiming they had symptoms.

Scottish government guidelines dictate that 80 per cent of these cases should be seen to within two working days, and the report found that NHS Lothian clinics had a 100 per cent record in booking appointments within that time.

Dr Anna Glasier, Lead Clinician for NHS Lothian's sexual health services, said: "Sexual health services need to be accessible and available at short notice. Long waits for help could be hazardous where sexually-transmitted infections are involved, and it is good to see that our service has done well in this test."

The news comes as a further boost to sexual health treatment within the Lothians.

On Friday, the Evening News reported that a 6 million 'one-stop shop' for sexual health is to be built in the city within two years.