A&E waiting time targets 'not hit for five years'

ALMOST two million people have waited more than four hours in A&E since the last time the Scottish Government's target was hit, new figures show.

- By Craig Paton

The Government aims for 95% of people each week to be seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in Scots emergency departments.

But that figure has not been hit since the week of July 12, 2020, in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the number of people going to hospital plummeted.

According to analysis by the Scottish Lib Dems, since the target was last hit, 1,921,053 people waited four hours or more.

Elsewhere, 237,623 people waited more than 12 hours during that period and 588,480 people waited longer than eight hours.