PATIENTS have given Inverclyde Royal a glowing report card but A&E performance has slipped back.

Levels of satisfaction are on the rise, with the hospital scoring better than before on care, treatment and environment measures.

Eighty seven per cent of patients rated care and treatment at the hospital highly in the most recent survey, compared with 82 per cent back in 2010.

Almost nine in 10 people were pleased with the hospital wards and environment compared with only 71 per cent in 2011.

The report on the hospital, which has 298 staffed beds, also shows how it fares on other key measures, such as death rates.

In Inverclyde Royal there was a standardised mortality ratio of 1.02 of patients who died within 30 days of admission to hospital, which is down 16 per cent compared with January to March four years ago.

This compares with 0.99 in the board as a whole and 0.95 nationally.

The number of planned operations cancelled fell to six per cent, compared to its highest point at 16 per cent in March this year.

But the hospital's accident and emergency unit has been under strain over the summer.

The number of patients being dealt with inside four hours fell to 88 per cent in the last week of July.

In total 72 people waited over four hours.

A total of 627 patients attended casualty.

No one was left waiting longer than eight hours but so far this year the A&E has only managed to meet the waiting time target on four occasions.

The hospital's latest A&E performance is behind the wider Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board and national trend, where 92 per cent and 91 per cent of patients repectively were dealt with in the four hour target timeframe.