NHS ills laid bare

WHAT bitter gall for Nicola Sturgeon to have to apologise to patients for delays in treatment caused by the ongoing NHS crisis.

Not so long ago, Miss Sturgeon declared her party the ‘guardians of the NHS’ and threatened to use her cohort of Westminster MPs to vote on English-only matters to ‘protect’ the health service there.

And now the truth is laid bare. With dithering Shona Robison – who also had to make an embarrassing apology to patients yesterday – as Health Secretary, the NHS in Scotland is in a parlous state.

This is not about Tory austerity. Miss Sturgeon and Miss Robison are never done telling us about the record sums of taxpayers’ cash they are burning at health.

But because the system is so inefficient, admin-heavy and wasteful, all that money has little positive effect on patient outcomes. The public know thoroughgoing reform is required and they know it will be tough.

But the SNP ‘guardians’ seem clueless as to where to begin and can only keep spending while forever ‘consulting with stakeholders and experts’, ‘learning lessons’ and ‘bringing forward plans…’

We’ve heard it all before and seen the utter lack of results from this endless churn.

The NHS is a behemoth and quite beyond Miss Robison’s ability to direct its course.

Our NHS is close to buckling, kept going only by the sort of Blitz spirit that last week saw clerical staff offer to tackle jobs such as cleaning in a bid to free resources for patient care.

And Miss Sturgeon’s distraction technique – ‘Things are worse in England!’ – is an insult both to patients and medical staff forever walking the long extra mile without SNP politicians anywhere in sight.