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Monthly and weekly A&E performance figures published.

Patient waiting times in A&E have reduced during both the month of March and the week ending 26 April.

The latest figures, published today, show that for the week ending April 26, 92.7 per cent of people were seen and treated within four hours at core sites.

This is up from 90.8 per cent the previous week and is the best performance since weekly A&E figures were first published for the week ending February 22, 2015.

During the same week 91.4 per cent of patients were seen at core A&E sites in England.

For the month of March, 91.1 per cent of patients in core A&E sites were seen within four hours – an increase of almost five percentage points on the previous month.

Figures for all sites – which includes minor injury units as well as 24 hour consultant led core sites – show that 92.2 per cent of patients were seen within four hours during March, up from 87.9 per cent in February.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said:

“I welcome today’s figures which show that A&E performance across Scotland is improving. This shows that NHS staff are continuing to work hard towards delivering the first class service the people of Scotland rightly deserve.

“It is promising to see that performance for the week ending April 26 is at its highest since weekly reporting began in February, with the latest week’s figures showing 92.7 per cent of patients were seen and treated within four hours at core sites.

“Of course, I have been clear with boards that they must now focus on sustaining the reduced waiting times we have recently seen and moving towards meeting our world leading targets.

“While health boards in the west of Scotland experienced the most challenges this winter it is also pleasing to see improvements are being made, with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s performance increasing by nine percentage points during March. At the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, performance during the week ending April 26, was more than 15 percentage points higher than when weekly reporting began in February.

“This improvement has been aided by the Scottish Government support team, who continue to help local teams to implement recommendations and lessons learned from the Royal Alexandria hospital in Paisley.

“The support team will remain at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde over the next two months during the move to the new South Glasgow University hospital which began last week.

“The Scottish Government is also meeting with the other west of Scotland health boards on a regular basis to discuss key priorities and actions.

“There is no doubt that there is still much to do to ensure sustainability and to ensure health boards are in an optimum position heading into next winter. Earlier this year we announced our intention to roll out a new approach to sustainably improving unscheduled care across Scotland and this has underpinned improvements in a number of health boards so far.

“We will continue to work with health boards to minimise long waits in A&E as well as look to ensure best practice is installed throughout the hospital system, supporting joined up work across health boards to address wider issues of patient flow through hospital and will also ensure the whole NHS system works together effectively.”

Background

Monthly A&E waiting time figures:

During the month ending March 31, 2015, there were 137,572 attendances at A&E services across Scotland . This is an increase from 121,281 during the month ending February 28, 2015. The total number of attendances in the year to March 31, 2015 was 1,639,991.

The full statistical publication is available on the ISD Scotland website: http://www.isdscotland.org/

Weekly A&E waiting time figures:

The publication of weekly A&E waiting time statistics for the week ending April 26 covers the 32 emergency departments in Scotland which provide a 24 hour emergency medicine consultant led service.

The statistics relate to patients who were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within 4, 8 and 12 hours.

The latest Weekly Statistical Publication is available at: http://www.isdscotland.org/

The statistics included in the Weekly Publication are also published on ISD’s NHS Performs website: http://www.isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Products-and-Services/NHS-Performs/

NHS Performs:

ISD produced a new section within their website for the initial release of NHS Performs on March 3 2015. Further work to develop the data and functionality of NHS Performs is already underway with a refresh planned for June 2015. Initial statistics available via NHS Performs from the 3 March 2015 include:

Weekly statistics relating to Emergency Departments at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland
Number of A&E attendances, % seen within 4 hours, number over 4, 8 and 12 hours

Monthly statistics relating to A&E activity at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland. 
Number of A&E attendances, % resulting in admission, % seen within 4 hours, numbers over 4, 8 and 12 hours

Quarterly statistics relating to Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios at hospital and Scotland
Standardised Mortality Ratio (SMR) and % Change in SMR since 2007

Weekly statistics relating to norovirus at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland
Total number of wards closed

Quarterly statistics relating to Healthcare associated infection at NHS Board and Scotland including C. difficile infections (over 15s) and SAB Infections.

The new website can be accessed at: http://www.isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Products-and-Services/NHS-Performs/