Challenges facing NHS are bigger than one woman

AS IT celebrates its 70th year, the NHS in Scotland continues to provide a world-class health service.

The dedication of the professionals and support staff who provide the care to thousands of patients a year from one end of the country to the other is beyond reproach.

But the leadership of this gilded ship has often been found wanting

Over recent years, this newspaper has exposed and campaigned on some of the worst examples of uncaring and incompetent managerial practices that have left patients and their families distressed, and sometimes the worse for their experiences, with the NHS.

Often these are exceptions but for the people involved, be they individuals or whole groups of patients, the consequences can be catastrophic and life-changing.

Ultimate responsibility for the service rests with Scottish Government ministers and since 2014 the buck has stopped with Shona Robison, who yesterday stood down from the role as Health Secretary.

Calls for her resignation pealed as regularly as an ambulance siren on the final approach to Ninewells Hospital as crisis after crisis mounted up in the NHS.

Time after time, her leadership, and the advice she was given, showed a lack of competence and control.

It is better, perhaps inevitable, that she be moved at the first dignified opportunity.

TROUBLES

In some ways, Robison was an unlucky health secretary.

Like the home office job in the UK Government, health in Scotland is a brief that can swallow politicians whole unless, like Robison’s predecessor, they become First Minister before the problems they have presided over become apparent.

But the troubles of health provision are bigger than one woman who, as her resignation letter acknowledged, has had huge personal and political struggles to cope with at the same time.

Resources and the demographics of ageing and remote populations, combined with the raised expectations of what patients should receive from health care, make the next seven years, never mind seven decades, of the NHS a major challenge.

As well as more funds – and that means raising taxes – the NHS still has to undertake the revolution in moving from hospital to home care and combining social and medical care.

These massive challenges, as well as tackling one of the biggest deadweights of all – that most of us Scots just don’t take personal interest in a diet or exercise plan – require communication skills, political savvy and tenaciousness that have been lacking.

It is unlikely that the appointment of Jeane Freeman will have an immediate impact on the service.

But an impact is needed – and a sense of leadership and mission to take the precious NHS through the decades to come.