NHS crippled by a lack of leadership

ONLY the extraordinary commitment of NHS workers is keeping the health service’s head above water as a surge in patients – in part down to flu, in part to slips caused by icy weather – bites hard.

Staff have cut short holidays to return to their posts in a fantastic example of the selflessness so many in the medical profession display regularly. But does it really have to be this way? Yet again Health Secretary Shona Robison is like a cork in a storm-tossed sea, forever at the mercy of events and ill-prepared for the reality of winter in Scotland.

And the truth is that, after more than a decade under the SNP, the NHS in Scotland is forever bumping along the bottom.

All Miss Robison has to offer is a tired mantra of more spending; more ‘consultation with stakeholders and experts’; more ‘lessons to be learned’ and more ‘bringing forward plans’.

Innovation and reform are needed, not simply more cash. And they are needed very soon – Miss Robison cannot be allowed to begin another endless cycle of introspection where more money is wasted on head-scratching.

She is in charge – where are her big ideas? Is she taking on the vested interests who resist reform? Is she fighting for a better deal for patients?

The answer to that question is written large in the chaos of overcrowded A&E departments across the country this week.

The SNP declared itself the guardian of the NHS but the magnitude of that falsehood is clear to every NHS staffer at work when they ought to be on holiday, to every patient marooned in A&E and to every unwell person ordered to stay away from hospitals creaking at the seams.