Emergency Departments across Scotland are under ‘relentless pressure’ that is simply ‘not sustainable’ as wait times were the worst on record for the month of March.
And the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) Scotland is yet again calling for the dire state of A&Es across the country to be a key political priority for Scotland’s health agenda post-election.
Monthly performance data, released today (5 May 2026) by Public Health Scotland, reveals it was the worst March on record across the board for four, eight and 12 hour waits.
A total of 7,384 patients, or one in 17, people who attended a major (type 1) ED waited 12 or more hours before being admitted, discharged or transferred.
That’s 2,009 more patients who endured this wait compared to March last year.
Meanwhile, one in seven patients (16,840) experienced a wait of eight hours or more.
And 45,189 people waited over four hours – an increase of 5,136 people compared to March 2025.
Patients are often experiencing these extreme long stays on trolleys in corridors due to the lack of available in-patient beds.
People in these beds are often stuck in hospital, despite being well enough to be discharged, because there is no appropriate social care support.
So called ‘delayed discharges’ meant there was an average of 1,923 patients in hospital each day, waiting to be discharged, even though they were well enough to leave. This is a decrease of 61 from February this year, but only a decrease of two from March 2025.
Responding to today’s data, Dr Fiona Hunter, Vice President of RCEM Scotland said: “March marks the start of spring – bringing with it warmer weather and the hope that the worst of winter was behind us. But the optimism of sunny days and rising temperatures bringing any respite on our overstretched Emergency Departments are long gone – we are constantly stuck in a perpetual winter.
“As an Emergency Department consultant, seeing these numbers strikes a huge sense of dread – it’s yet another month where a record has been set.
“Here’s a statistic that was incredibly disheartening to read – the number of people who waited more than 12 hours in our Emergency Departments in March is 32 times higher than seven years ago. It’s hard to fathom that this is the state of emergency departments in this country.
“These are people who are sick. They need urgent care. People who are seeking our help in their time of need. And yet they are being forced, through no fault of their own, to endure these incredibly long waits on trolleys in corridors or other inappropriate spaces because the system simply isn’t working as it should.
“The patient pathway is broken. We can’t move patients into wards who need further care because there aren’t any available beds for them.
“A big event is happening in the political calendar this week – the election. We call for Emergency Departments to be a political priority for Scotland’s health agenda. Fix the ‘back door’ of our hospitals by tackling delayed discharges and end corridor care.
“The relentless pressure our members and their colleagues are facing is not sustainable.”