Four-hour A&E target missed in almost 500,000 cases in 2024 - worst year on record

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Last year marked the worst on record for accident and emergency waits, with nearly half-a-million instances of the four-hour target being missed – a situation that has seen a staggering 500% rise in patients waiting 12 hours or more over three years, according to new figures.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have revealed that there were 497,142 cases where patients waited over four hours in A&E during 2024, setting a grim record for breaches of the four-hour target in a single year.Their analysis also showed a shocking 519% increase in the number of patients enduring waits of 12 hours or more since 2021, the year the Scottish Government's NHS recovery plan was launched.

Back in 2021, there were 248,736 instances of patients waiting beyond the four-hour mark, including 12,638 cases of 12-hour waits.However, by 2024, this had escalated to 78,238 cases of half-day waits in A&E.

Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton unveiled these figures, slamming the SNP ministers' recovery plan as a "complete failure".He criticised the Scottish Government, stating: "It is remarkable that since introducing a plan to bring down waits, the number of people waiting half-a-day at A&E has actually increased six-fold.