RCEM has welcomed the uptick in performance figures for Emergency Departments (EDs) in Scotland in for December 2025, but cautioned that there were still major improvements to be made.
RCEM Vice President for Scotland Dr Fiona Hunter said: “We welcome this good news in the data for December 2025, and are pleased to see that in Scotland’s major (Type 1) EDs every single metric has seen an improvement on the previous month (November 2025) and in December 2024.
“This is a testament to how hard our A&E staff work nationally to provide urgent medical help to patients in their hour of greatest need. However, we are still concerned about some of the waiting times highlighted in these figures today.
“Small improvements should be no reason for complacency and there is a long way to go to get EDs back to the levels of performance we would want to see.
“Other figures released today showed that 7,145 - one in 16 patients (over 6%) – waited twelve hours or more in EDs, which has decreased of 1,249 from December 2024. Even though this figure has decreased from both November 2025 and December 2024, it is still unacceptable and shows the pressure EDs are under.”
Another decrease in the figures was that 41,485 of patients waited over four hours in major EDs. This is a decrease of 2,493 patients from the previous month (43,978), and a decrease of 5,051 patients from December 2024 (46,536).
A further decrease indicated was that 15,258 which is one in seven patients waited eight hours or more in EDs which has decreased from 3,015 from December 2024.
Dr Hunter added: “ED staff continue to work to ensure all patients are cared for as soon as possible under demanding circumstances.
“But despite the mild improvements we have seen in December, our clinicians are regularly reporting that they are experiencing some of their most demanding shifts in recent years. The December picture is very different to what our members are currently reporting.
“For future winters, we need to see mitigation planning happen a lot further in advance, alongside long term transformation plans.”
Notes to editors
In the week ending 11 January 2026, one in nine patients were experiencing 12-hour waits and one in five patients were waiting between 8-12 hours, which shows the time lag in data release limits its usefulness for understanding the most current operational pressures.