Scotland’s ‘distracted’ SNP government is risking lives, Scottish Labour has said, as the worst ever weekly A&E statistics have been recorded.

Statistics published this week have shown that during week ending 3rd July 2022, only 64.9% of attendances were seen and resulted in a subsequent admission, transfer or discharge within four hours.

This is the worst performance against the four hour standard on record, with the previous lowest performance recorded in the week ending 20^th March 2022 when 66.2% of patients were dealt with within four hours.

Despite the number of attendances being down on the previous week, the number of patients waiting over four, eight and 12 hours were also at record highs, with over 3,000 patients waiting over eight hours for treatment and 1,153 people waiting over 12 hours.

Scottish Labour health spokesperson Jackie Baillie said: “Not only are A&E services still in disarray but the crisis is deepening.

“These statistics are yet another worst ever weekly performance for our A&E departments.

“Long waits in A&E used to be a sign that there were problems and pressures elsewhere in the NHS system, but the SNP have ignored the warnings and now our NHS is in perpetual crisis with thousands of lives being put in risk at A&E departments on a weekly basis.

“While frontline NHS staff work tirelessly around the clock, Humza Yousaf has completely failed to make any meaningful attempt to address the underlying problems or control this crisis.

“Make no mistake – lives are being risked due to the incompetence of Humza Yousaf.

“This distracted SNP government is putting lives at risk and threatening the very existence of our NHS.”