1 in 8 on waiting list and record NHS vacancies.. yet Sturgeon still in denial

Problem of treatment backlog started long before Covid and SNP’s catch-up plan is failing to improve patient care

ONE in eight people is on some form of waiting list for hospital treatment in Scotland – that is 708,000 people.

If you’re reading this on a bus on the way to work, the chances are that someone on one of the seats around you is waiting, filled with anxiety or in pain, to be seen on the NHS.

When I challenged Nicola Sturgeon about this last week, I was met with a level of complacency which was almost delusional.

It was the pandemic’s fault, she said, and the Scottish Government has a catch-up plan which will start bringing these lists down.

No one doubts that the pandemic has led to a huge backlog of treatment.

But what the First Minister knows – and would prefer you didn’t – is that waiting lists have been going up on the SNP’s watch since long before Covid struck.

Audit Scotland’s annual report card for the NHS in 2019 makes it clear that the warning lights of our healthcare system have been flashing for some time.

The number of people waiting for an inpatient appointment was up 37 per cent since 2014, and the number waiting for outpatient appointments was up 22 per cent in the same period. The number of days lost to delayed discharge between 2016 and 2019 was up nine per cent.

In September 2019, NHS Scotland admitted it was experiencing its highest-ever vacancy rate, with 4000 nursing posts unfilled. Ministers just stuck some tape over the blinking lights and hoped nothing would come of it.

That brings us to today. The Royal College of Nursing this morning issued a warning that nine out of 10 of its members said there weren’t enough staff working on their last shift to keep patients safe.

We now have a new record for vacancies of nurses and midwives – 6000.

The same staff we applauded from our doorsteps during the pandemic are now warning us that safety levels on their wards are critical.

The SNP’s catch-up plan that is supposed to be bringing waiting lists down is in tatters.

Since it was announced in August nearly 60,000 more people are on waiting lists.

All of this is before we even consider that Nicola Sturgeon has broken her own treatment time law 490,000 times.

Tomorrow we will see the latest treatment figures for child and adolescent mental health in Scotland.

Nothing could be more important than the health of our children – especially as they try to recover from the trauma of the Covid pandemic.

In December, those stats showed almost 2000 youngsters were left waiting a year or more for the mental health care they needed.

A total of 11,816 youngsters were waiting for an appointment with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service.

Children already victimised by the pandemic will be told by ministers again that there is nothing that can be done to help them right now.

Despite the heroic efforts of staff, our NHS is infected by crises which could have been avoided and can be fixed.

But to do that Nicola Sturgeon has to be honest, first with herself and then with the country, that any contact tracer would say that this outbreak of incompetence started in Bute House.

NHS is infected by crises that could have been avoided