NHS crisis must not become the ‘new normal’

Voters must not allow SNP to convince them ministers cannot do anything about the dire state of Scottish healthcare

An 83-hour wait in a hospital A&E; four-in-ten patients waiting longer than four hours; 30 ambulances queuing outside a hospital, unable to respond to other emergency calls; staff “leaving shifts in tears” over the standard of care and “a near collapse of performance”, according to an expert at the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

If anyone dares to say that Scotland’s NHS is not in a state of crisis or that these are just the usual winter problems, we should be outraged. The danger is that politicians like the embattled Health Secretary, Michael Matheson, will succeed in their efforts to convince us that, while regrettable, this is somehow acceptable, that there is nothing more that ministers can do in the circumstances, that this is the new normal.

Amid calls for his resignation over the abject failure of the SNP’S NHS recovery plan, Matheson spoke of how the “heightened winter pressure” was “not unique to Scotland”. Instead of “blame Westminster”, the attempted defence this time was “Westminster’s just as bad”, as if that provided any comfort to the legions of patients forced to wait for hours on end in pain and distress.

He admitted that the age-old problem of delayed discharge – in which patients well enough to leave hospital cannot do so, often because the necessary social care is not available – was a “major factor”, but claimed an action plan was being “implemented at pace”. Given this has been an issue for years, few will have high hopes the SNP has finally found a solution. Indeed, new Public Health Scotland figures show the situation is actually getting worse: 1,910 people were delayed in hospital in November, up from 1,730 in April. One reason ambulances can’t drop off patients promptly is that A&E departments are full because wards are full.

Judging by the state of our hospitals, the SNP’S talk of recovery plans and action plans is simply that – talk, and dangerous talk at that. We must not allow incompetent politicians to lull us into complicity in the demise of that great British institution, the National Health Service.