NHS Forth Valley say increase in patients has led to poor A&E waiting time figures

Figures on the Public Health Scotland website for week ending September 20 show NHS Forth Valley had 990 patients attending A&E and only 84.7 per cent were seen within four hours.

This compares to 90.4 per cent of 23,762 patients in the whole of Scotland being seen within four hours.

Figures showed NHS Lothian saw 88.7 per cent of 4110 patients within four hours, while NHS Tayside managed to see 96.9 per cent of 1372 patients within the four hour timescale.

An NHS Forth Valley spokesperson said: “Like all NHS Boards we have seen an increase in attendances at our emergency department in the last few weeks and a number of days where we have seen a high number of seriously ill patients with very complex health needs.

“Staff across the hospital continue to do everything possible to reduce delays and work is also underway to help ensure patients who require urgent care are seen and treated as quickly as possible.”

The Public Health Scotland site also shows the number of people referred to see a cancer specialist in Scotland dropped during lockdown – between April and June there were 851 fewer people referred than over the same period last year.

The statistics also show a similar drop in the number of people beginning cancer treatments.

However, NHS Forth Valley stated it continued to provide cancer care throughout the pandemic, including surgery for patients who required operations.