Edinburgh NHS waiting times: More than 10,000 waited over 4 hours in Lothian A&Es last year

Nearly 5,000 waited over five hours, more than 2,000 were there for six hours and 55 are shown as waiting for more than 13 hours.

The accident and emergency department at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary

The statistics for NHS Lothian were obtained through Freedom of Information by the Liberal Democrats, whose leader, Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton described them as “shocking”.

The Scottish Government’s target is that 95 per cent of patients attending accident and emergency departments should be seen, discharged, admitted or transferred within four hours. The figures come less than a month after routine reporting of waiting times across Scotland showed that in the week ending June 23, A&E departments had their worst performance since the beginning of the year, with 10,019 having to wait more than four hours. Just 63.7 per cent of patients were seen within the target time.

Politicians at the time warned of the "creeping normalisation" of "hospital limbo" and said too often people had to wait in corridors.

The FoI response shows that in Lothian, a total of 10,243 people waited longer than 4 hours in A&E during 2023-24; 4,965 people waited more than 5 hours; while 2,092 waited more than 6.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said: “It’s shocking that so many patients in NHS Lothian are waiting in pain for hours on end. Under the SNP Government, our health service is teetering on the brink. The SNP can’t get the basics right and are totally out of ideas for how to fix things. Staff and patients deserve so much better.“

He urged fast access to community services, including GPs and dentists, so fewer people needed to go to hospital in the first place and action on social care by boosting the minimum wage for care workers by £2 an hour, enabling people to leave hospital and relieving pressure throughout the NHS.