Four-hour A&E wait time target missed in almost 500,000 cases, 2024 figures show

Last year was the worst on record for the longest accident and emergency wait times, with the four-hour treatment target missed in nearly half a million cases.

The number of patients waiting 12 hours or more has surged by over 500% in the past three years, according to the latest figures obtained by Scottish Liberal Democrats.

There were 497,142 occasions where patients also had to wait longer than four hours to be admitted, transferred or discharged from A&E in 2024. This is the highest number of breaches of the four-hour target recorded in a single year.

The party’s analysis of waiting figures also revealed a 519% increase in the number of patients spending half-a-day or more in A&E when compared to 2021 – the year the Scottish Government launched its NHS recovery plan.

There were 248,736 occasions in 2021 where Scots waited longer than the four-hour target time, including 12,638 cases where patients were there for 12 hours or more.

But in 2024, the Liberal Democrats found there were 78,238 cases of patients being in A&E for at least half-a-day.

Revealing the figures, Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton branded the recovery plan – introduced by SNP ministers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic – a “complete failure”.

Hitting out at the Scottish Government, he said: “It is remarkable that since introducing a plan to bring down waits, the number of people waiting half-a-day at A&E has actually increased six-fold.

“The SNP have completely failed to get to grips with this crisis.

“The SNP’s NHS recovery plan has been a complete failure.

“A&E departments have been stuck in a state of perma-crisis ever since it came in and year on year things are only getting worse.”

There were 248,736 cases of the four-hour target being missed in 2021, but this jumped to 436,446 in 2022, the Liberal Democrats calculated, and the total then rose again to 443,429 in 2023.The party published the data in the wake of a report from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) which spoke of a “devastating collapse in care standards” in the NHS, with patients “routinely coming to harm” and unable to access basic services.

The RCN report said there is a “corridor care crisis” in hospitals across the UK – with Mr Cole-Hamilton saying health staff “have been sounding the alarm for years over the conditions in our NHS”.

He added: “This SNP Government has failed to give them the beds and safe staffing levels they need to do their job and keep people safe.

“This kind of pressure cooker of constantly deteriorating conditions will only end one way – mass burnout among staff.”

He said “action must be taken to prevent this”, and added: “Scottish Liberal Democrats would overhaul the SNP’s failed NHS recovery plan, bring forward measures to address burnout among staff, and help people leave hospital on time with a care package through a new UK-wide minimum wage for care workers that is £2 higher.”

Health Secretary Neil Gray said that while A&E departments “have continued to face significant pressure, particularly during the recent challenging winter period”, this issue “is not confined to Scotland”.

He added: “Scotland has had the best-performing core A&E units in the UK for over nine years.

“The Scottish Government is determined to drive improvements, reduce waiting lists and tackle delayed discharge – all of which will improve the flow of patients through hospital and ease pressures on A&E.”

Gray continued: “If passed by Parliament, our Budget will provide £200 million to help backlogs, improve capacity and remove blockages that keep patients in hospital longer than necessary – ensuring we can deliver the best possible service for patients. I urge Parliament to get behind the Budget Bill.”Show less