A&E departments meet target for waiting times in April

Scotland's accident-and-emergency departments (A&E) met a key waiting-times target in April.

Published 7th Jun 2016

Scotland's accident-and-emergency departments (A&E) met a key waiting-times target in April.

A total of 95.1% of all patients were seen and either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours, hitting the Scottish Government's interim target of 95%.

A&E performance against the target was up from 93.1% the previous month and 92.8% in the same month last year.

Official statistics show 568 patients (0.5%) waited for longer than eight hours while 158 (0.1%) spent more than 12 hours in an A&E department.

The April figures were published alongside the latest weekly numbers, which show the benchmark was missed in the week ending May 29.

Performance against the four-hour target was 94.1%, with 73 patients (0.3%) waiting more than eight hours and six people in A&E for more than 12 hours.

Six health boards - NHS Borders, NHS Grampian, NHS Lothian, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Forth Valley - fell below the 95% level.

The worst-performing site was Glasgow Royal Infirmary (88.7%), followed by the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (88.9%) and the Borders General Hospital (89.2%).