NHS crisis can no longer be ignored, BMA Scotland warns
●Chairman highlights ‘unrelenting’ pressure, lack of staff and under-resourcing in message
Warning signs that the NHS is in urgent need of more funding cannot be ignored in 2021, the chairman of the British Medical Association in Scotland has said.
In his annual festive message, Dr Lewis Morrison said the year ahead presents an opportunity to repair some of the long-standing issues faced by the health service which “cannot be missed”.
There can be no going back to the pre-covid NHS, which was under“unrelenting” pressure, understaffed and under-resourced, Dr Morrison said, adding the system “simply isn’t funded enough” to maintain the level of service of recent years.
B MA Scotland released result sofa survey of 900 of its members, revealing that almost two thirds (61 per cent) believe the NHS is funded well below what is required.
Some 92 percent said the NHS cannot continue to provide the same level of service without additional funding, and more than a third said staffing levels where they work have deteriorated in the past five years.
The BMA Scotland survey comes amid further warnings today that mental health services in the NHS have "gaping holes", with one in eight senior posts lying vacant.
Scottish Liberal Democrats demanded action after fig - ures released under Freedom
of Information showed that of 632 consultant psychiatrists posts in Scotland ,82 are not currently filled.
Details provided by health boards showed that neither Nhs western isles nor nhsorkney have a permanent consultant psychiatrist in place. Meanwhile, both NHS Lothian and NHS Lanarkshire have 14 such vacancies amongst their staff. Dr Morrison said: “I want to look forward to next year and the pressing need to fix the undoubted problems we had in healthcare before the pandemic, but which the pandemic has exposed so very clearly.
“Given the developments before Christmas that have rightly prompted tough restrictions for January – the first part of the year will likely remain very difficult, for the country and our NHS. Simply getting through will be hard enough.
“But looking at the year as a whole, we can ignore the warning lights about the state of our health service no longer.
"Next year there is a real opportunity for change that cannot be missed.
“As we roll out a complete Covid vaccination programme and life starts getting back to normal, there can be no going back to what was normal in the NHS.
"Because that normal was a normal of understaffing, underresourcing and unrelenting pressure.
"Our national debate will focus on the Scottish Parliament elections in May and whatever the outcome the message to all political parties must be that healthcare deserves better than “more of the same”.
“The early results from our survey tell us doctors are working in a system which simply isn’t funded sufficiently to even keep doing what it does at the moment.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said 2020-21 will see “record workforce and funding levels” in the NHS in Scotland.
Citing the priority framework announced by Health Secretary Jeane Freeman in November, they said: “As we continue to respond to Covid-19, this necessary guidance will ensure patients have a clear and realistic expectation of when they will receive treatment that is clinically appropriate to their individual circumstances.
“This is especially important as we approach winter and the additional pressures this places on health services, together with the continuing critical need for the NHS to respond to Covid-19.”