Health Secretary Shona Robison has praised staff in NHS Dumfries & Galloway for treating 96 per cent of Accident & Emergency patients within four hours.
A&E figures for the month of January show core A&E departments in NHS Dumfries & Galloway treated 96 per cent of people within four hours – far exceeding the national average of 85.4 per cent.
As well as the monthly A&E waiting times figures, the first weekly publication of A&E waits at core sites were also published today. These figures will be available on the new NHS Performs website.
The weekly figures show that NHS Dumfries & Galloway treated 95.4 per cent of patients within four hours between February 16 to 22 at its core A&E sites. This is again well above the national average of 86.1 per cent.
Ms Robison said:
“Staff in NHS Dumfries & Galloway are continuing to do a fantastic job to treat people as quickly as possible. This winter has been a very challenging time with record number of attendances across Scotland and more people being admitted with complex illnesses.
“It is promising to see that NHS Dumfries & Galloway is treating around 96 per cent of people within four hours, with their waits both for the month of January and the week of February 16 to 22 being well above the national average.
“Of course, there is always more to be done. This is why in January we also committed £100 million specifically to help health boards and local authorities tackle delayed discharge. This is both good for the patient and frees up beds to help people move out of A&E and through the system.
“This comes on top of our substantial, £50 million investment in an unscheduled care action plan, which has seen increased staffing – particularly amongst emergency department consultants – and on-going improvement in the system.
“This funding as well as the roll-out of a new collaborative approach to unscheduled care across Scotland will work to minimise long waits in A&E as well as look to ensure best practice is installed throughout the hospital system, supporting joined up work across health boards to address wider issues of patient flow through hospital.
“As we move towards the integration of health and social care in April, these are the right steps to take and I am determined to work with all health boards across the country to improve performance and ensure waits are brought down for patients. Our targets are rightly the most challenging in the UK but it means we need to work even harder to meet them.”
Staffing levels in NHS Dumfries and Galloway have risen by 6 per cent under this government, an increase of 197.1 whole time equivalent posts.
Background
Weekly A&E waiting time figures:
The first publication of weekly A&E waiting time statistics for the week ending February 22 covers the 32 emergency departments in Scotland which provide a 24 hour emergency medicine consultant led service.
The latest Weekly Statistical Publication is available at: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/03/7923
The statistics included in the Weekly Publication are also published on ISD’s NHS Performs website: http://www.isdscotland.scot.nhs.uk/Products-and-Services/NHS-Performs/
Monthly A&E waiting time figures:
During the month ending January 31, 2015, there was 129,269 attendances at A&E services across Scotland. The total number of attendances in the year to January 31, 2015 was 1,645,639.
The full statistical publication is available on the ISD Scotland website: http://www.isdscotland.org/
Health Board Monthly A&E waits – January 2015 – % seen in 4 hours (core sites) Weekly A&E waits – February 16 to 22 – % seen in 4 hours (core sites)
Ayrshire & Arran 81.7 80.5
Borders 89.7 89.5
D&G 96.0 95.4
Fife 89.9 88.2
Forth Valley 86.7 96.2
Grampian 86.1 89.6
Greater Glasgow & Clyde 77.7 75.9
Highland 94.8 95.2
Lanarkshire 86.9 85.6
Lothian 88.4 94.5
Orkney 99.0 93.3
Shetland 97.8 97.5
Tayside 98.8 98.8
Western Isles 96.9 97.4
The Local Delivery Plan (LDP) for 2015/16 sets out that the A&E four hour standard follows clinical advice to sustain at least 95 per cent of A&E patients being treated within four hours, as a step towards achieving 98 per cent, which is among the toughest A&E standard anywhere in the world.
NHS Performs:
A preliminary version of the NHS Performs website is expected to be established by the end of March 2015 to aid discussion amongst the users of NHS data. ISD will also be identifying how it plans to enhance the accessibility of its website in consultation with the public and other developments in the availability of statistics on NHS services.
ISD will produce a new section within their website for the initial release of NHS Performs on 3 March 2015, this will be signposted on their front-page.
Initial statistics available via NHS Performs includes:
Weekly statistics relating to Emergency Departments at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland
Number of A&E attendances, % seen within 4 hours, number over 4, 8 and 12 hours
Quarterly statistics relating to Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios at hospital and Scotland
Standardised Mortality Ratio (SMR) and % Change in SMR since 2007
Weekly statistics relating to norovirus at hospital, NHS Board and Scotland
Total number of wards closed
Quarterly statistics relating to Healthcare associated infection at NHS Board and Scotland including C.diffice infections (over 15s) and SAB Infections.
Budget allocations 2015-16:
Health Secretary, Shona Robison, confirmed in February that health boards in Scotland are to receive an additional £282 million in 2015-16 as well as an additional £30 million next financial year to tackle delayed discharge.
NHS Dumfries and Galloway will receive an additional £6.2 million in 2015-16.
This brings NHS Dumfries and Galloway’s general allocation increase to 2.4 per cent on 2014-15, bringing the board’s general allocation to more than £265.9 million.
In addition to this, the Government’s announcement of £900,000 for NHS Dumfries and Galloway in 2015-16 to tackle delays in discharging patients from hospital will be added to the board’s budget, bring the total uplift to 2.7 per cent.
Workforce
Staffing levels in NHS Dumfries and Galloway have risen by 6 per cent under this government, an increase of 197.1 whole time equivalent posts.
As of December 2014 there were 3,507.3 whole time equivalent posts in NHS Dumfries & Galloway.
