Current status: Answered by Andy Kerr on 20 December 2005
To ask the Scottish Executive how many admissions there were to each accident and emergency department in each of the last two years and, of these, how many (a) were taken by emergency ambulance and (b) required an in-patient bed, broken down by hospital.
Information is given in the document Accident & Emergency information 2004 - 2005. A copy of which has been placed in the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib. number 38433).
Information in the document includes:
the numbers of attendances to hospital accident and emergency departments for the years ended 31 March 2004 and 2005.
the numbers of emergency admissions to non-obstetric/non-psychiatric specialties by hospital/ location for the years ended 31 March 2004 and 2005.
the number of incidents requiring an emergency ambulance by location for the years ended 31 March 2004 and 2005.
Information on the numbers of accident and emergency attendances who proceed to hospital admission is not available, on a routine basis, from central statistical returns.
Published information, from the annual Accident & Emergency Waiting Times Surveys 2000-2005, indicates approximately 15-20% of the new patients that attended during each survey period were admitted to a bed in the same hospital.
In cases of emergency admission, many of these patients may have been admitted via accident and emergency departments but this is not explicitly stated in the source data. Patients may be admitted via other routes (for example, acute medical receiving wards).