The proportion of patients seen in Accident and Emergency departments within the four-hour target has fallen to the lowest level since 2019, the latest NHS Scotland figures show.
Almost a fifth (19.9%) of the 25,418 patients who attended A&E in the week ending July 11 waited more than four hours to be admitted, transferred or discharged.
There were 712 patients who waited longer than eight hours, and a further 167 faced a wait of more than 12 hours.
READ MORE: Scots waiting a year or more for hospital treatment up 86 per cent in three months
The Scottish Government’s target is for 95% of patients to wait no longer than four hours, although this has not been met since July 2020.
The latest weekly figure of 80.1% compliance with the target is the lowest level recorded since December 2019.
Across Scotland, NHS Forth Valley is the worst-performing health board, with just 65.1% of 1,200 patients seen within four hours, followed by NHS Lanarkshire (68.5%) and then NHS Fife (79.4%).
READ MORE: A&Es hit lowest compliance with waiting times targets during Covid spike
The island health boards of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles were the only ones to exceed the 95% target, achieving 98.3%, 96.6% and 95.3% respectively.
The latest figures also show the total number of A&E attendances have been falling since reaching a pandemic peak of 28,492 during the first week of June.
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