South Scotland MSP Colin Smyth has expressed concern that none of the health boards in the south of Scotland have met the Scottish Government’s Accident and Emergency waiting time targets in the week ending 12 September.

New statistics show NHS Ayrshire and Arran saw 77.2 per cent of patients within four hours, this dropped to 65 per cent for NHS Borders, 68.5 per cent for NHS Lanarkshire and 66.1 per cent in NHS Lothian.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway saw 81.7 per cent of patients within four hours, however, 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.

Colin Smyth said: “The crisis in our NHS is spiralling further and further out of control and these latest figures are very concerning.

“Lives are now being jeopardised on a daily basis due to the failure of this SNP government to properly support the NHS.

“Staff are doing a fantastic job in incredibly tough circumstances and I want to say a huge thank you to each and every one of them.

“But the lack of capacity means that the local health service is often having to choose between treating Covid and treating other conditions and that is leading to a massive increase in demand for Accident and Emergency services.

“The SNP government must heed the warnings of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and act now to secure more acute beds for the NHS.”