Real issues ignored in favour of SNP dream

ANOTHER day, another crisis facing Scotland’s overstretched public services. Shocking new figures show the huge strain facing hospitals up and down the country.

Families are entitled to expect that they and their loved ones will get a good level of service when they face the trauma of being admitted to hospital – then get discharged as quickly as possible.

However, new figures reveal that increasing numbers of patients are waiting in accident and emergency departments way beyond the SNP Government’s target of four hours, while hundreds of operations are cancelled every month for ‘capacity or non-clinical reasons’.

In addition, 43,419 days were spent in hospital in March by people whose discharge was delayed – an increase of 2 per cent compared with the same time last year.

These are healthy people who have recovered from illness or surgery but are not being discharged, often because they are waiting for an assessment of their care needs to be carried out.

All these statistics point to growing problems in Scotland’s hospitals. That is in addition to the crisis facing GP surgeries and social care services, not to mention difficulties in other areas such as education and the economy.

These are the bread and butter issues on which our politicians should be judged and it is time for these shortcomings to be addressed. Instead, SNP ministers seem more concerned about trying to suggest that the situation is worse in England, or that independence is the magical answer to all these problems. Rather than tub-thumping on the constitution, the majority of Scots would far rather they got on with the day job of addressing the issues that matter most to them.