Yousaf has been criticized for “pathetic” A&E waits after fifth straight surge

The figures, coming as Health Minister Humza Yousaf is running for the post of First Minister, have been described as “deplorable” by the Scottish Tories.

Public Health Scotland reported 8,629 people waited more than four hours to be seen last week, compared with 6,453 in the week to January 22 when it started to rise.

The number of people waiting longer than eight hours has risen for four consecutive weeks from 2,018 in the week ended January 29 to 2,983 last week.

The number of waits longer than 12 hours has fluctuated less predictably, but rose from 1,133 to 1,275 last week.

As a percentage, the number of people who waited longer than four hours improved slightly from 64.4 to 64.5 percent, although this was 70.3 percent in the week ended Jan. 29.

Some large hospitals experienced far poorer patient turnover.

At the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, just 41.4% of people were seen on time last week, while at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital the figure was 41.5%.

The goal is for 95% of patients to be admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours.

Since July 2020, it has no longer been fulfilled nationwide.

The worst performing health authority last week was NHS Forth Valley, where 47.2% of patients were seen on time, followed by NHS Borders (56.3%) and NHS Lanarkshire (58.5%).

February’s decline in performance reflects an improvement in January.

Other PHS data released today showed that emergency department waits were on-time at 68.7% in January, down from a record low of 62.1% in December.

There were also slight improvements in the late discharge figures related to average wait times and average occupied beds in January, albeit from poor December figures.

Tory MSP Dr. Sandesh Gulhane said: “These pitiful figures show that despite the peak of the NHS winter being behind us, there is no sign of improving emergency department performance in Scotland.

“The tragic reality is that lives continue to be unnecessarily lost to excessive delays – which is why the increase in patients waiting longer than 12 hours is so appalling and unacceptable.

“We can never accept a scenario where more than a third of patients are not seen within the Scottish Government’s four-hour target – but that has become the norm under Humza Yousaf’s disastrous tenure as Health Secretary.

“These appalling statistics do not reflect the dedicated NHS frontline workers who have been stretched beyond breaking point by years of horrific workforce planning and SNP recovery plans that are not fit for purpose.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “Humza Yousaf told the Scottish people his NHS recovery plan would see improvements in how we managed the crisis in our emergency departments.

“Despite the hype, as is usual with this administration, wait times have skyrocketed and the conveyor belt of broken promises trundles on.

“On his watch we saw the worst A&E wait times on record.

“The Scottish public will no doubt be asking what Humza Yousaf would actually do differently as First Minister, but three weeks into this competition we have heard nothing new from him on how the NHS is being supported.

“Thousands of people wait endlessly for treatment every week and every one of them is taken for granted by this government.

“The SNP and its leadership candidates need to stop obsessing over reckless segregation programs and reduce the boiling point pressures our NHS is facing.”