Concerns are growing about waiting times at Ayrshire and Arran hospitals after it was revealed at an NHS board meeting that nearly 50,000 outpatients are waiting to be treated.
The NHS Ayrshire and Arran board confirmed that in six months, more than 2,000 further people have been added to the total for those waiting longer than a year and the number of new outpatients waiting longer than 12 months has been on an increasing trend from 3,271 at the end of March to 5,393 in mid-September.
Shockingly, it has also been revealed there are around 400 patients who have been waiting for more than two years for their issue to be addressed.
Kirstin Dickson, director for transformation and sustainability, said: “Performance remains somewhat challenged. There remains an increasing number of patients waiting longer than 12 months or 18 months. There are some significant challenges in terms of increasing activity and long waits.”
North Ayrshire councillor Todd Ferguson said: “It is diabolical that almost 50,000 people are on the Ayrshire and Arran NHS waiting list.
“Our hard-working NHS staff are doing absolutely everything they can to try and address the significant challenges they are facing.
“The dire workforce planning of successive nationalist health secretaries has left our NHS chronically short of frontline medical staff. Instead of remobilising frontline NHS services, Humza Yousaf’s disastrous stewardship of the health service now means more and more Ayrshire residents are waiting for vital procedures and tests.
“They need to adopt the Scottish Conservatives’ plans for a modern, efficient and local health service.”
Statistics revealed at the board meeting also revealed that unscheduled emergency department attendances between January and August 2023 are slightly lower in comparison to the same period in 2022.
Since falling to a low in December 2022, compliance against the emergency department four-hour standard continues on an increasing trend, reaching 68.9 per cent in August. This performance remains below the 95 per cent national target and compliance has consistently been higher at Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock, than Ayr Hospital.
National target missed at Crosshouse Hospital, pictured, and Ayr Hospital. No_B42Crosshouse01_23_outpatient_board_meeting