A FIFE MSP has demanded answers after figures revealed that just over half of A&E patients were being seen inside the target time at the Victoria Hospital.
Labour politician Alex Rowley has tabled a question in the Scottish Parliament to ask why just 54.3 per cent of people were seen by NHS Fife within the four-hour target while the health board in Tayside recorded a figure of 83.8 per cent.
“I am asking the Scottish Government with sincerity why one health board in the region can have a somewhat respectable number of patients seen within four hours and yet another has such a shockingly-low percentage seen in the expected timescale," he said.
“We need to get to the bottom of why people are waiting so long to be seen at A&E in NHS Fife hospitals. Is it a case that NHS Tayside is doing something that can be learned from or are there structural problems within NHS Fife causing these low figures?
“I am asking the Scottish Government to look into this and tell the people who use these services what is happening. Surely it must be concerning for the Government that only around half of A&E attendees are seen within four hours in Fife hospitals.
"We need to find out what is going on in order to get to the bottom of it and bring the service back to an acceptable level.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “In common with health services across the UK and worldwide, the pandemic has presented our NHS with the greatest challenge of its 74-year existence. Despite this, Scotland continues to have the best-performing A&Es in the UK, outperforming those England, Wales and Northern Ireland for seven years.
"Occupancy and staffing pressures remain high and continue to impact the delivery of emergency services. COVID has not gone away but, despite this, almost than two-thirds of patients are being seen within four hours of arrival.
“We are investing £50 million to drive down waiting times through our Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative programme, including further development of flow navigation centres in every board which aim to ensure rapid access to a clinician and scheduled appointments, where possible.
"This will avoid people waiting in A&E waiting rooms unnecessarily. We are engaging with boards on an ongoing basis to support them to avoid delays.”
NHS Fife’s Director of Acute Services, Claire Dobson, said their hospitals remain “extremely busy” and “far beyond” what is ordinarily expected at this time of year.
“Similarly, the number of attendances at our Emergency Department is regularly above 250 people in a single day, each of whom have to be assessed, treated and either discharged or admitted,” she said.
“The demand for inpatient beds is still very high, and this coupled with the ongoing difficulties in ensuring the timely discharge of patients to social care services, is restricting of the flow of patients out of our Emergency Department into other parts of the healthcare system.
"Importantly, all patients who are required to wait are cared for and monitored throughout.
“It is as vital as ever that patients in Fife use the Emergency Department responsibly and we continue to see people attending with much less serious issues that would be more appropriately treated elsewhere.
"The Emergency Department is designed to care for those with life threatening emergencies with those who are most unwell prioritised to be seen quickest, and those whose condition is less serious likely to wait longer.”
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