Yousaf must take responsibility for NHS
For a very long time now it has been obvious that something has to change about the way our NHS is being run by the Scottish Government.
From damning weekly A&E stats to troubling anecdotes of friends and family members waiting years for operations, we’re reminded constantly that something has gone very wrong.
For anyone who thinks concerns about our NHS are exaggerated or being taken out of context, I can recommend some difficult but essential reading.
This week Audit Scotland – the body responsible for auditing the country’s public organisations – published their review of the current state of our NHS.
This analysis does not hold back on some of the fundamental problems that have been allowed to develop under the SNP’s watch.
The review states: “Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, NHS boards were finding it difficult to consistently meet waiting times standards, particularly for planned care.”
It also said that most waiting time standards are not being met and that “more cases are being added to waiting lists than are being removed”.
Besides referring to issues we’ve already heard a lot about, such as exhausted staff and risks to patient safety, the review highlights what should be our biggest concern of all: the future of our NHS.
Their review states that despite plans and policies being in place there is no “overall vision” of what the future of the NHS will be like and that the lack of such a vision makes longer-term planning more difficult for NHS boards.
Having Health Secretary after Health Secretary play down their government’s own shortcomings in managing our NHS, this is the hard dose of reality that’s been required.
We’re told on regular basis by the First Minister and the new Health Secretary that our NHS has record funding, record staffing and that NHS Scotland staff are the best paid in the UK.
When confronted on Thursday with the findings of Audit Scotland’s report, both Gray and Yousaf once again reached for these defensive lines.
There is no acknowledgement from them that despite the ‘record investments’, our NHS is not fit for present demands and, as Audit Scotland has made clear, it certainly is not prepared for the future.
Yousaf, like his predecessor, has decided to focus his energy on defending his government’s handling of the NHS over the last 16 years instead of dealing with the NHS’s shortcomings.
At Scottish Labour conference last week, it was refreshing to hear some bold, innovative policies that would bring about the change we need to see in our NHS.
One policy for example is to pay social care workers a wage that reflects the value of their work.
We have said countless times already, a wage of £15 per hour would attract people back into the care profession that’s currently lacking in staff and in turn ensure that the social care infrastructure is there to take the pressures caused by delayed discharge off of our hospitals.
A Scottish Labour government would invest millions of pounds generated by closing the non-dom tax loophole into appointments for diagnostics and procedures every year. This could deliver an estimated 160,000 additional appointments for Scots.
Practical policies with tangible outcomes are what I was listening to at the conference, and they are precisely what is needed more than ever in our NHS.
It’s said the first step in solving any problem is acknowledging there is one.
That’s what Humza Yousaf must do. His response to criticism of our NHS cannot continue to be ‘Yes, but’.
He must accept there are issues that he and his government are responsible for.
His refusal to change course risks putting our NHS into an even more perilous position in the future.