Jackie Baillie has warned that NHS Scotland is “fighting for its life” as the RAH recorded its worst ever A&E waiting times.

Just 42.4 percent of people who attended at the emergency department at the Paisley hospital which is the local casualty unit for Dumbarton, the Vale of Leven, Helensburgh and Lomond were seen within the Scottish Government’s target time of four hours.

Over two thirds of people (67.6 percent) were seen within eight hours and a shocking 157 people had to wait for 12 hours or more.

Across Scotland, 1 in 10 people were left waiting more than 12 hours at A&E.

In the week ending January 1, the figures were worse at the RAH than across Greater Glasgow and Clyde as a whole.

Delayed discharge rates also climbed to their highest point on record again in November, with the average number of beds occupied per day due to delayed discharge hitting 1,950.

This amounts to 58,501 days being spent in hospital by people whose discharge was delayed, piling pressure on hospitals and fuelling the crisis in A&E.

These damning new figures come as BMA Scotland Chair Dr Iain Kennedy issued another stark warning about the state of NHS Scotland, stating that “we risk the death of Scotland’s NHS as we know it”.

He warned that without finding answers to the current crisis we will “sleepwalk into a two-tier system where the wealthy who can pay do so to get the treatment they need promptly, while others are left languishing in pain on waiting lists” – warning that “that is already happening to some degree”.

Jackie Baillie said: “Our NHS is fighting for its life, but the SNP don’t seem to grasp the scale of the challenge.

“In a single week thousands of Scots were stuck waiting more than half a day in A&E, putting lives at risk and putting staff in an impossible position. The situation at the RAH, where many of my constituents attend, was among the worst in the country.

“Delayed discharge continues to spiral and pile pressure on services, despite one empty SNP pledge after another to end the practice.

“Staff are exhausted, patients are in danger, and the very future of our NHS is at stake.

“The SNP must start acting with the urgency and ambition needed to tackle these problems before more lives are lost.”