Friday 4 October 2024
The Scottish government is ‘not doing enough’ to prevent another winter crisis in A&Es, as overcrowding continues to make delivering safe care ‘a challenge’.
In an interview with BBC Scotland published today (Friday 4 October 2024), RCEM’s Vice President for Scotland Dr John-Paul Loughrey said the Scottish government’s winter preparedness plan which was revealed last week, won’t improve the experience of staff or patients.
“We are seeing lots of discussion, but we haven’t seen any useful measures so far that will make it any better for people working in A&Es this winter,” he said
He highlighted the difficulty of transferring people out of A&E due to a lack of available beds elsewhere in the hospital and described the treatment of people in corridors due to lack of space as “inhumane.” He also said “chronic pressure” was leading to burnout in staff.
The views were backed by RCEM’s Vice Chair for Scotland Dr Fiona Hunter on BBC Radio Scotland this morning who said that the “denial” by Health Secretary Neil Gray that there is a “crisis” in A&Es is “not helpful.” She added: “Patients are waiting up to 48 hours. We are already in crisis, and we are not able to provide the safe and dignified care that we aim to.
“Winter has already started for Emergency Departments and the plans that have come out are not going to be enough. I fear for what patients are going to see when they come to emergency departments.”
RCEM has called on the government to heed the ‘alarm bells’ after the latest performance data from Public Health Scotland shows in August more than a third of people (34.2%) waited over four hours, more than one in 10 (11.3%) waited eight hours or longer, while 4.65% of patients waited over 12 hours in a Scottish Emergency Department.
Since August 2017 the numbers waiting four hours or more has increased by six times (6,743 to 39,096), eight hours or more by 37 times (347 to 12,954), and 12 hours or more by 127 times (42 to 5,312). This is despite attendance only decreasing by 0.7% in the same period.
Listen to Good Morning Scotland on Catch-up from 1:00:00 here.
