NICOLA Sturgeon’s government has been urged to put fixing the NHS before independence, after more than 30% of patients waited too long in A&E for a sixth consecutive week.

Public Health Scotland reported only 68.1 per cent of people attending a casualty department were seen within the official four-hour target in the week ending April 17.

This was up on the previous week’s 66.6%, but the sixth time in a row that the figure had been below 70%. It was last above 70% in the week to March 6.

The target is for 95% of patients to be admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

It has not been met nationally since July 2020.

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has warned the significant delays are harming or killing more than 30 patients a week. 

Opposition parties said the figures were “appalling” 

The number of people waiting more than four hours fell from 7,923 to 7,616 last week despite attendances rising from 23,734  to 23,880.

The number of patients enduring extreme waits also declined marginally, with the number waiting more than eight hours down from 2,420 to 2,159 and the number waiting more than 12 hours down from to 953 to 855.

The worst performing health board was Forth Valley, with just 48.3% of patients seen within four hours, with NHS Borders seeing 61.2% and NHS Lanarkshire seeing 62.8% on time.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: Waiting times are out of control and people are dying as a result. 

“It’s time for the SNP/Green Government to really focus on solving this crisis in our A&E departments, not spend ever more time and money on an unwanted independence referendum.

“Staff have been working flat out, they have nothing more to give. This complacent government was already pushing them to their limits pre-pandemic when targets were missed for years on end. The SNP have failed our NHS. 

“This is why the SNP/Green Government were wrong to vote down Scottish Liberal Democrat proposals for an urgent Burnout Prevention Strategy.

“The Health Secretary must also now admit the need for an inquiry into avoidable deaths linked to the crisis in emergency care. People deserve to know why ministers have not fixed this crisis.

“Frontline staff need extra protection, patients need new hope and everyone needs ministers, and a government, who are actually focused on what really matters right now.”

Tory MSP Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “These latest appalling stats are soul-destroying for both our dedicated but exhausted A&E staff and the public alike.

“We’re almost into May and way past the latest peak of Covid infection rates, so we’d expect to see waiting times improving markedly. Yet, due to chronic workforce planning by the SNP Government, they remain stubbornly dire – and lives are being needlessly lost as a result.

“The Health Secretary can’t just stand back and accept a situation where virtually a third of people are having to wait more than four hours to be seen in an emergency ward - but that is what appears to be happening.

“When is the penny going to drop and Humza Yousaf realise that his flimsy Covid Recovery Plan isn’t up to the scale of the crisis our A&E wards face?”