Murdo has slammed the latest “appalling” Accident and Emergency waiting times for Fife, stating they show why “the SNP’s time is up in Government.”
He was commenting following the release of the A&E waiting times for the week ending June 9, which reveal that all the waiting time figures for Fife are worse than the previous week (ending June 2), including the number of people who were seen within the target of four hours of coming into the A&E department at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy.
Public Health Scotland publish the data.
Commenting, Murdo said: “These latest A&E waiting time figures for Fife are absolutely appalling and must be called out for what they are. During this General Election campaign, First Minister John Swinney has consistently claimed that the SNP Government are spending record amounts of money on the health system, but he does not have an answer for why there are such lengthy waiting lists and times for various medical procedures in Scotland.
“Not only are less A&E patients in Fife being seen within the SNP target of four hours, but all the other waiting times of more than four hours, more than eight hours and more than 12 hours have all gone up in the latest statistics, which is shocking.”
Murdo continued: “These damning figures produced by Public Health Scotland follow the release of alarming data last week by campaign group Scotland in Union, which showed that more people in Scotland are now waiting more than 12 hours in A&E than waited for four hours when former First Minister Alex Salmond came to power in 2007 – this is just unbelievable.
“The A&E waiting times in Fife, and across Scotland, are consistently bad in general and they have been neglected by this incompetent SNP Government. We have seen several SNP Health Ministers continue to trot out the same excuses for not dealing with our ailing health service, but health is devolved and despite lame words the buck ultimately rests with the SNP Government.
“The First Minister’s complaints about facing austerity yet being able to say a record sum has been spent on our NHS just do not add up. This all shows the SNP’s time is up in Government.”
