The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
In the first of a series, we look at post Covid-19 life.
As Scotland begins to emerge from lockdown, most agree there will be a new ‘post-Covid normal’. The Courier’s political team has been examining what it could look like. On day one of a six-day series, Adele Merson examines the NHS and healthcare system
Expecting the NHS to return to normal will be “difficult” in the first few years of recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, one of Scotland’s top doctors has said.
The future of the health and social care sector is certain to be shaped in significant and lasting ways by its experience battling the biggest public health crisis in a generation, with little expectation the British institution will return to normal in the immediate two to three post-crisis years.
Dr Lewis Morrison, chairman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said it is important to remember the health service’s position at the time the virus hit – one of “massive pressure” due to thousands of vacancies across the country for senior doctors, GPs and nurses, coupled with a “lack of resources”.
Getting back to normal will take longer because of the pressures an understaffed service has faced, Dr Morrison argues, adding that there will be some employees nearing the end of their career who will “genuinely ask themselves” if they want to stay once the crisis has passed.
“This is a difficult subject to raise but there is a real question about whether or not – unless you can throw a massive amount of resource at the NHS in the one, two or three-year recovery period from all this – expecting the NHS to do absolutely everything it was doing, running hell for leather, before this kicked off isn’t reasonable, in my view.
“That’s a very difficult conversation to have with the public, if you have to say to the public your NHS is not actually going to do some of the things it did before for the foreseeable future.
“There’s a pecking order here. At the moment the top priority is Covid-19, then the next priority is all the serious underlying diseases such as vascular diseases and cancer that are normally the things that are very high priority in terms of time and seriousness.
“Further down the list which the public have come to expect, the psychosocial aspect of medicine – which is a strong part of general practice and, which patients expect – will be quite difficult to deliver in the coming months.
“Expecting the NHS to completely go back to doing all the things it did before is going to be difficult post-Covid as we probably spend a year or two coming out of this.
“There is a question as to whether the NHS will have the facilities or resources to deliver everything we did before.”
It seems likely the coronavirus crisis will allow the NHS to enjoy an elevated status in society given the Herculean efforts of the frontline staff who have risked their lives to care for the country’s citizens.
But will this mean it is awarded top priority and more resources from politicians in the wake of the crisis?
While he would “hope” this would be the case, Dr Morrison acknowledges that politicians will be forced to make choices about where resources will be spent at a time when the UK is likely to enter into a “pretty significant economic recession”.
Dr Morrison added: “It’s a double whammy of health and social care resources being under pressure like they’ve never been under pressure before at a time when the financial envelope that’s available is going to be pretty restrictive due to the macroeconomic conditions.
“I think most people anticipate that there are some difficult times ahead.
“From a health service perspective, I think that means we’re going to have to make some choices about where the priorities are.”