500 days of falling down on the job
Pressure grows on the Health Secretary as NHS failings revealed
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf faces accusations that he is “disastrously out of his depth” 500 days into the job after publication of a damning dossier of NHS failings.
The SNP high-flier was handed the senior job in First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s cabinet as the country emerged from the pandemic in May 2021.
However, official statistics show existing problems spiralling out of control and a litany of grim new records being set since then, despite restrictions easing.
Meanwhile, hospitals could be facing a winter of chaos after nurses rejected a five per cent pay offer and prepare to strike at one of the busiest times of the year.
Failures highlighted in a Scottish Labour report include:
● A crisis in A&E, with the weekly number of people waiting more than 12 hours soaring and now eight times higher under Yousaf ’s watch.
● A total of 7118 excess deaths since he took over and another drop in life expectancy.
● The 62-day cancer waiting times target missed repeatedly, with performance declining to its worst point on record.
● A 58 per cent increase in delayed discharge, with 685,000 bed days lost in total.
● A 23 per cent increase in NHS vacancies, over 7500 unfilled posts, and nurses balloting for strike action for the first time in living memory.
Labour health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “Five hundred days of Humza Yousaf has left our NHS on life support.
“He is disastrously out of his depth and his record- breaking failure is putting lives at risk.
“Fantastic NHS staff have been left demoralised and exhausted trying to compensate for the mess this SNP Government has made.
“When a health board is failing, they are put in special measures – and now it’s the Health Secretary who needs to be in special measures.”
The Scottish Government has also been accused of “grossly misleading” patients over waiting times following the launch of a revamped NHS website.
Official statistics show they are waiting months longer for operations than the portal suggested. People waiting for procedures such as hip and knee operations are waiting six weeks longer than the NHS Inform website stated.
Speaking exclusively to the Su nday Ma i l , Bai l l ie added: “Humza Yousaf was g iven the dif f icult job of guiding our NHS through its recovery from the pandemic–but he has fallen badly short. Far from rebuilding, performance has declined, waiting lists have grown, and chaos has become the new normal.
“Grim new records are set, only to be broken again within weeks, as the situation gets worse. But while our NHS fights for survival, Yousaf seems more concerned with mas king the problems rather than fixing them.
“Take the website he championed, which claims to show average waits for surgeries like knee and hip replacements. A good idea – the problem is, it ’s not giving an honest picture. Doctors slated the cherry-picked data, with the former president of the British Orthopaedic Association branding the figures ‘grossly misleading’.
“It is a sign of desperation from a Health Secretary disastrously out of his depth that he fiddles the figures to give patients false hope.
“This cynical attempt to move the goalposts and hinder transparency is par for the course for the SNP but it isn’t good enough when the NHS is on the brink of catastrophe. There
are lives on the line – we need a government capable of reckoning with their failures and a health secretary up to the job.”
The Cabinet Secretary has been warned by professional organisations including the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow and the Royal College of General Practitioners of increasing pressures on NHS services.
Yousaf was also last week forced to hold an emergency summit with Labour MSP Monica Lennon after a leaked memo from one of Scotland’s biggest health boards admitted services were “overwhelmed”, with patients routinely waiting more than 12 hours for emergency care. The shocking document revealed bed and staff shortages along with other pressures across three acute care departments had resulted in a “bleak” outlook at NHS Lanarkshire. The health board has been operating under so-called “code black” levels of risk for almost a year.
Lennon said: “It doesn’t get much more serious than NHS Lanarkshire warning that the situation for patients and staff is bleak.
“This prolonged period of Code Black is dangerous. It cannot become the new normal for our health service.
“Patients and staff are already paying a heavy price. Seriously unwell people waiting in excess of 12 hours to be seen and assessed in emergency departments due to the overwhelming demand is frightening.”
The Scot t ish Government has never met its Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services target of seeing 90 per cent of referrals within 18 weeks.
At the end of June 2022, over 9700 children and young people were waiting to start treatment.
Meanwhile, life expectancy is two years less for women and men in Scotland compared to the UK average at 80.7 for women and 76 for men.
Lib Dem leader Alex ColeHamilton added: “The Health Secretary needs to immediately engage with health bosses and work out what it is that they need to turn the tide.”
Scot t ish Tor y spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: “The situation in the NHS has been unacceptable for far too long.
“Dedicated frontline staff and suffering patients have been let down at every turn by Humza Yousaf ’s inaction.”
A Scot t ish Government spokesperson said: “The Health Secretary is absolutely focused on ensuring Scotland’s NHS is as well equipped as possible to tackle the huge challenges we face. He will shortly set out our plans to prepare the health and social care service for the challenges of winter, as well as updating progress on the first year of the £1billion Recovery Plan.
“Under his watch, health spending and staffing levels have grown to record levels since 2007 and Scotland has had the most successful vaccination programme of any UK nation.
“Recent figures showed the recovery on long waits for planned care is well under way.
“Our ambitious waiting times targets look to address the backlog of planned care and we are working hard with boards to maximise capacity.”