...Think THAT’S ludicrous? Meet £200k boss who says crisis is good for the NHS (oh, and she’s WFH)
A HIGHLY paid health service boss claims that Scotland’s NHS crisis is good for doctors and nurses because being overworked makes them ‘think outside the box’.
Hospitals are being stretched to breaking point as patients face record waiting times for treatment.
But Professor Emma Watson, who is paid nearly £200,000 a year, insists chronic cash and staff shortages are a ‘whole new opportunity’.
In remarks sure to enrage those struggling to cope on the front line, the executive also revealed that she continues to work from home, but her decision to ‘stay connected to rurality’ is sending a ‘powerful’ message.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: ‘NHS staff being pushed beyond their limits will be infuriated by these comments. Professor Watson’s attempt to put a positive spin on this dire state of affairs is utterly tone-deaf.
‘As a doctor, I find the suggestion that adversity and scarcity can be used to encourage innovation to be misjudged – and frankly insulting. The crisis facing our
NHS is not a training exercise and patients’ lives are on the line.’ Professor Watson – a former Scottish Government adviser on access to healthcare – was recently appointed director of medicine at NHS Education for Scotland (NES).
Speaking to the US podcast Rural Health Leadership Radio earlier this month, she admitted the health crisis is worse in Scotland than in England.
She said: ‘What we’ve seen is that pent-up demand for healthcare really coming to the fore, the staff in the hospitals and the primary care providers really being overwhelmed trying to deliver the best care they can for their patients. And in the UK, in Scotland in particular, and in rural communities… the finances are now really terrible.
‘Rural teams, rural leaders, they’re super-innovative and you give them scarcity and you give them adversity and they’ll think out of the box and create a whole new opportunity, and you see that time and time again. And, actually, they’re a role model for other areas to look at – that being able to think out of the box: “Why are we doing it this way? What is it that we’re here for? We’re here for our communities, we’re here for our people. This doesn’t make sense – let’s do this instead”.’
Professor Watson recently returned to Scotland from a year’s sabbatical studying US health service leadership. She began her new role with NES in the summer and continues to work from home near Inverness, more than 100 miles away from headquarters.
She said: ‘Pre-Covid, I would have had to move to Edinburgh, and we’d have had to uproot the family. But now, in this new world ... where we do things remotely, I can be at home in rural Scotland, I can stay connected to rurality.’
NES said: ‘The last two years have shown new technology can help us deliver health and social care services, no matter where we are based.’