Performance times in Scotland’s A&E departments have improved across the board, arresting a precipitous recent decline.

The proportion of people seen within the official four-hour target rose from 65.6% to 67.9% last week, as the numbers waiting more than four hours fell from 8,921 to 8,582.

Public Health Scotland also reported fewer patients waiting more than eight hours, down from 2,855 to 2,472 (11 to 9.2% of all A&E patients), and waiting more than 12 hours, down from 1,020 to 961 (3.9 to 2.6%).

However, opposition parties said the figures for the week ending August 20 remained too high, with almost a third of patients still waiting too long.

The better news followed a doubling of the numbers enduring eight and 12-hour waits over the previous three weeks, leading to the worst figures since the week to May 14.

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.

READ MORE: Number of patients enduring extreme A&E waits doubles in three weeks

The improved performance last week was in spite of the overall number of people presenting at A&E increasing from 25,904 to 26,764. 

The worst performing health board last week was NHS Forth Valley, where 52.6% of patients were seen on time, followed by NHS Lanarkshire (59.8%) and NHS Lothian (61.7%) .

The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has calculated there will be an excess death for every 1 in 72 patients who spend between eight and 12 hours in an A&E. 

Scottish Tory MSP Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “It is completely unacceptable that almost a third of patients are still languishing for over four hours as they wait to be seen in Scotland’s A&E departments.

“The continued lengthy A&E waiting times are a damning reflection of the SNP’s mismanagement of Scotland’s NHS.

“Ministers have failed to get a grip on this crisis during the height of summer, so yet again patients and my dedicated colleagues on the frontline are facing the prospect of a terrifying winter.

“Dire workforce planning by successive SNP health secretaries and the failures of Humza Yousaf’s now two-year-old flimsy NHS Recovery Plan are continuing to have a deeply damaging effect for patients and staff.

“If Michael Matheson wants to drastically reduce A&E waiting times, then he should rip up that recovery plan and instead follow the Scottish Conservatives’ vision for a modern, efficient and local health service.”