First Minister John Swinney is being warned that without urgent action the NHS could "buckle under winter pressure", as the latest figures showed more than a third of patients in A&E waited longer than the target time.

Health Secretary Neil Gray conceded that the latest weekly data showed that performance against accident and emergency waiting times "is not good enough".

His comments came as Public Health Scotland figures showed that 63.4% of patients in A&E were seen and either admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours in the week ending September 21.

This was down from 66% the previous week and continues to be well below the Scottish Government target of having 95% of A&E patients admitted, transferred or discharged within the target time.

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