WAITING times performance for A&E patients at Scotland's new super-hospital improved in the two weeks over Christmas and New Year, after previously hitting an all-time low.
Health board bosses in Glasgow were forced to intervene days before Christmas after the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital recorded its worst ever A&E performance during the week ending December 18, when barely three quarters of patients were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours - far short of the Scottish Government's 95 per cent target.
The latest figures show that this had improved to 88.5 per cent in the week ending January 1, and 90.1 per cent in the week to December 25.
However, this still represented a deterioration in performance compared to the festive fortnight in 2015, when compliance four-hour target averaged 93.5 per cent. A total of 3,491 visited the hospital's A&E department during the 2016 festive fortnight, compared to 3,482 for the same period in 2015, so there was no significant increase in demand.
The figures from ISD Scotland, the official healthcare statistics body, show that performance at Scotland's core A&E departments averaged 92.3 per cent in the final week of 2016, missing the Scottish Government target. However, half of Scotland's health boards - including NHS Lothian, Tayside, Ayrshire & Arran and Borders - did achieve or surpass the 95 per cent threshold.
Despite improvements at the QEUH, however, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde remained the worst performing with only 87.1 per cent of A&E patients dealt with within the four-hour window.
The figures show that pressure on Scotland's A&E departments increased overall during December, with around 5000 more patients attending emergency departments last month compared to the same period in 2015 - an increase of four per cent from 118,640 in 2015 to 123,432 in 2016.
However, this coincided with a spike in the number of patients waiting more than eight hours and, in some cases, more than 12 hours in Scotland's core emergency departments.
The ISD statistics reveal that 119 patients spent more than 12 hours in an emergency department in December 2016, compared to 48 during the same period in 2015 - an increase of 148 per cent.
Meanwhile, the number of patients waiting more than eight hours also increased from 515 to 885, a surge of 72 per cent.
Patients facing these lengthy waiting times still account for less than one per cent of all attendances at A&E, however.
It comes as Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the Commons NHS England's four-hour A&E target needed to be "protected" for the most serious cases and should not apply to non-urgent patients.
Hospitals across England have not hit the target since summer 2015 but the Department of Health said there are no plans to alter it.
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