Tuesday 2 September 2025
As a dire winter for Scotland’s A&Es looms, new analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine shows that too many people are enduring extremely long waits.
The latest Emergency Department performance figures, released today (2 September) by Public Health Scotland, for July 2025, reveal that slight progress has been made in reducing the longest waits compared to last year – but the picture is still bleak.
The data, for major Scottish EDs, showed that in July 2025:
- Around two thirds (67.3%) of patients were seen within four hours – a slight increase of 1.2 percentage points on July 2024, but still far below the safe target of 95%.
- One in 10 (11,928) patients waited an unacceptable eight hours or more, a decrease on the same month last year – but more than ten times more than in July 2019 (1,130).
- Thousands of people (4,686) were forced to wait more than 12 hours.
- There was an average of 1,928 beds each day occupied by people healthy enough to be discharged, an increase of 464 compared to July 2019.
Responding to the most recent data, RCEM Vice President for Scotland Dr Fiona Hunter said: “There has been no summer respite in our Emergency Departments this year. What should have been a quieter month was busier for ED staff than winter was a few years ago.
“All year round, thousands of people are waiting for extremely long periods of time in EDs, which is putting them at risk of further harm. This is unacceptable.
“Not enough emphasis is being put on tackling this by politicians, and we have yet to see a winter plan which will prevent harm coming to patients from long waits in EDs this winter.
“The usual winter flu season will put further pressure on an already broken healthcare system, and we would urge all eligible patients and staff to get their flu vaccine.
“If this is the state of our EDs in the height of summer, what is winter going to look like?
“The Government must urgently lay out its plans for tackling the cold months, or emergency staff will be overwhelmed and, more importantly, patients will suffer the consequences.”
Visual representation if the data and longer-term trends are available on the RCEM Website.