EMERGENCY department waiting times at Glasgow’s new super-hospital continue to be the worst in Scotland, but death rates at the health centre are well below the national average. 

The latest quarterly mortality statistics reveal that the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow is among the best performing in the country despite its struggle with A&E waiting times.

The figures for April to June this year compare a hospital’s performance on the basis of how many patients were statistically expected to die during the three-month period against the actual number to create a ratio.

Only patients who died within 30 days of admission, either in hospital or in the community, are included. 

The report by ISD Scotland shows that there were 622 such patient deaths recorded by the QEU compared to a predicted 813, scoring the hospital a 0.77 ratio – compared to 0.86 for the national average.

In crude terms, it means four in every 200 patients admitted to the QEU died within a month, compared to five in every 200 across all NHS Scotland hospitals.

The QEU was one of only two hospitals in Scotland which recorded a mortality ratio significantly below the national average.

The Raigmore Hospital in Inverness scored 0.58 after registering 70 patient deaths compared to an expected 120. However, ISD Scotland cautioned that data from NHS Highland is incomplete and therefore less reliable. 

The Scottish Government has set a target to reduce hospital standardised mortality ratios (HSMRs)by 10 per cent by December 2018. The latest report shows a seven per cent reduction against the January-March 2014 baseline.  Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “These]mortality statistics show exactly why our Scottish Patient Safety Programme deserves its international reputation as a world leader and the numerous copies of it around the world.

It is particularly encouraging to see that our newest hospital, the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, has a hospital mortality rate that is significantly below the national average.”

Caithness General was flagged, however, for scoring 1.78 mortality after recording 14 patient deaths compared to an expected eight. ISD Scotland stressed that the data “should be regarded as a trigger for further investigations”, rather than evidence of a “poor quality or unsafe service”. 

Meanwhile, the latest weekly waiting times figures for Scotland’s 30 “core” emergency departments showed that the QEU continues to miss the Scottish Government target to have 95 per cent of patients seen and admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours, achieving only 83.6 per cent - the lowest in Scotland. It came as Ms Robison announced an extra £3 million in winter resilience funding for the NHS.

However, it has fewer extreme delays than some other units.  To date in 2016, 16 A&E patients have waited longer than 12 hours at the QEU compared to 223 at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 197 at Hairmyres and 99 at Wishaw General, both in Lanarkshire.