Health Secretary insists the NHS on Scotland is ‘turning a corner’

Scotland’s Health Secretary has insisted the NHS is “turning a corner”, despite the country’s emergency departments recording a string of record-breaking waiting times this year.

Angela Constance said “things can get better” after figures published on Tuesday showed June was the worst month on record for A&E performance.

The latest figures came after the NHS also recorded its worst May and April on record for A&E waiting times, while January was the worst month ever recorded.

Speaking during a visit to NHS24 in Glasgow, she accepted there were “significant challenges” facing accident and emergency departments – but said there were signs of progress elsewhere in the NHS.

She told the Press Association: “Yes, things can get better, but firstly I have to acknowledge that there are significant challenges and significant pressures on our accident and emergency services and we remain laser focused on addressing that.”

Ms Constance said the Government’s national plan to improve the flow of patients through hospitals would help alleviate pressure on A&Es by ensuring more people can leave hospital as soon as it was “safe to do so”.

She also said investing more in GP surgeries and local health services would reduce pressure on hospitals.

The comments came after Public Health Scotland figures showed just 67.9% of patients attending major emergency departments were admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in June, the lowest figure ever recorded for the month.

Questioned over John Swinney’s repeated claim that the NHS is “turning a corner”, despite the latest performance figures, Ms Constance insisted improvements were being made.

She said: “The NHS is turning a corner, both in terms of increased activity, so we have met the target around 150,000 operations and procedures.

Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care PA Media

“We have another commitment to deliver 50,000 procedures within our first 100 days.

“So across the system, we are seeing an increase in activity. We are also seeing those long waits reducing. The progress there has been sustained.”

The Health Secretary pointed to inpatient and day-case waits falling for 13 months in a row, while the longest waits for outpatient appointments had reduced over the past 17 months.

Pressed on figures showing A&E waits were getting worse, she added: “No, well, A&E is indeed significant.

“No-one is denying that the challenges in A&E are significant but there is work underway, very focused work underway, to address that.”

Separate figures released on Tuesday also showed the average number of hospital beds occupied by patients whose discharge had been delayed rose to 1,946 in June – worse than the previous three months.

Asked whether she remained confident the Scottish Government could fulfil its long-standing ambition to eradicate delayed discharge, Ms Constance said keeping patients in hospital longer than necessary was “not in anybody’s interest”.

She said some parts of Scotland were making “good progress” in reducing delayed discharge and said successful approaches should be adopted more widely across the country.

Scottish Labour has claimed the NHS is at “breaking point” and accused the SNP of being in “denial about the scale of the crisis”.

Acting leader Jackie Baillie said: “The SNP’s annual winter NHS crisis has turned into a year-round crisis, with thousands of people facing dangerously long waits for urgent care at the height of summer.

“Rising levels of delayed discharge are piling pressure on hospitals and leaving people stuck in waiting rooms waiting for a bed.

“Patients and staff are being let down by this dangerously complacent SNP government.

Miles Briggs, the Tory health spokesman, said NHS staff were being “forced to work in a system that has been badly let down by years of ministerial failure”.

He added: “John Swinney cannot keep claiming a corner has been turned when patients are experiencing record delays and performance is going backwards.

“The reality facing patients bears no resemblance to the spin coming from SNP ministers.”

Mr Briggs said the delayed discharge figures were a “stark reminder of one of the SNP’s longest-running broken promises”.

He said: “The nationalists vowed over a decade ago to eradicate delayed discharge, yet nearly 2,000 people are still stuck in hospital despite otherwise being well enough to leave.

“That is failing those patients, piling pressure on frontline staff and preventing others from getting the treatment they need.”

The Scottish Government has a target of 95% of A&E patients being seen and admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

In June, around a third of patients waited longer than the four-hour standard.

Some 11.1% of the 147,876 patients who arrived at emergency departments that month waited more than eight hours for treatment while 4.4% waited more than 12 hours.