Neurologist would employ ‘anyone’ in staff crisis
Pressures on our health services mean keeping it as the best in the world is going to need radical surgery
A Scottish neurologist has told MSPS he will employ any job applicant who makes it “through to interview” as a recruitment crisis continues to bite.
Professor Malcolm Macleod, clinical lead for neurology at NHS Forth Valley, said: “I’d like to have five applicants for every job so I could choose the very best and just now I’d take anyone who’ll apply and make it through to interview. And I don’t think that’s good for patients with neurological diseases in Scotland.”
He said that current staffing problems were due to a range of issues, including a 15 to 20 per cent real terms drop in salaries across the health service in the past seven years.
A leading neurologist has told MSPS he will employ any job applicant who makes it “through to interview” due to a recruitment crisis.
Professor Malcolm Macleod, clinical lead for neurology at NHS Forth Valley, said use of locums caused “chaos”.
Giving evidence to Holyrood’s health and sport committee, he said the health board recently received no applications for a consultant neurology post.
He said: “I’d like to have five applicants for every job so I could choose the very best and just now I’d take anyone who’ll apply and make it through to interview.
“And I don’t think that’s good for patients with neurological diseases in Scotland.”
He said there were many reasons behind the staffing issues, including consultants in Scotland no longer being in line for higher awards, unlike England, and a 15 to 20 per cent real terms drop in salaries across the health service in the past seven years.
Mr Macleod, Professor of Neurology at Edinburgh University, said junior doctors were leaving to go into finance “because they don’t see it as a career for someone like them”.
He said Forth Valley health board, like others, was behind on some waiting times for neurology and in a bid to treat urgent referrals would see patients before clinics began.
He said waiting for assessment could cause anxiety but locums were not helpful.
He said: “I detest this bringing in activity from outside. I think it’s driven by a desire for boards to meet their waiting time targets but it is very disruptive. We had people coming in doing clinics over the weekend and we audited what happened and the rate at which they requested investigation was much higher than our in-house neurologists, the rate of complaints was much higher, the rate of return appointments made was much lower and the chaos that ensued was much, much, much higher.
“It would have been quicker if I had seen those 100 patients than it was to clean up the mess afterwards.”
The committee also heard from Tanith Muller, vice-chair of the Neurological Alliance of Scotland, who said use of locums to address the “recruitment crisis” can be unhelpful.
She said health boards brought in neurologists who do not know the local support services for conditions such as Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis, leaving patients “struggling” following diagnosis.
Shadow health secretary Miles Briggs said: “It is absolutely vital that this is addressed and that being a junior doctor is once again an attractive career path.”
Scottish Labour’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar said nurses and doctors in scotland were “over-worked, understaffed and under-resourced”.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “NHS Scotland staffing as a whole has increased by more than 10 per cent since September 2006 to a record high, including a 47.1 per cent increase in medical and dental consultant staff.”
“It would have been quicker if I had seen those 100 patients than it was to cleanup the mess afterwards”
MALCOLM MACLEOD
Yet another symptom of the NHS’S possibly terminal sickness showed itself yesterday with a leading neurologist warning of unfilled vacancies, locums making the situation worse and junior doctors giving up to pursue different careers instead.
Professor Malcolm Macleod told MSPS that anyone who managed to make it through an interview was likely to get a job because of the lack of other applicants. And this absence of choice, he warned, was not good for patients.
Filling the gaps with temporary staff in an attempt to meet waiting time targets had resulted in “chaos” on one weekend, he said, with too many patients referred for further investigation and more complaints. Perhaps he didn’t mean it to come out this way, but Prof Macleod seemed like someone at the end of his tether when he said: “It would have been quicker if I had seen those 100 patients than it was to clean up the mess afterwards.”
Most junior doctors will doubtless have gone into the NHS with high hopes of making a real difference to people’s lives. That they are choosing to go into the financial sector “because they don’t see it [medicine] as a career for someone like them”, as Prof Macleod reported, should be deeply worrying.
There is nothing wrong with working in finance, it is a mainstay of our economy, after all. However few people are fired with an altruistic passion for it in the same way as they are for curing the sick and saving lives. It suggests that the pressures on NHS staff are starting to outweigh the sense of vocation.
Unfilled vacancies mean other health service staff have to work harder, adding to the reasons that are prompting some to look elsewhere, creating yet more vacancies. If the health service is to be saved, politicians need to step in to prevent this vicious circle from getting worse. Scotland’s ageing population and expensive new medical treatments have stretched NHS budgets to the limit. If the NHS cannot attract enough staff, then the pressures could become intolerable.
The Scotsman has previously suggested radical solutions for the NHS’S problems may be required.
But it should always be remembered that, despite its problems, the NHS remains one of the best health services in the world – and also one of the cheapest.
If we allow the NHS to decline further, we may come to regret it.