Meeting of the Parliament 18 February 2015
Let us be in no doubt about how bad the situation is. Since the new year, NHS Tayside has had to cancel more than double the number of operations that it cancelled in the whole of the past financial year. The number of cancelled operations is increasing exponentially across the country as a result of the pressures on our health service.
We come to the chamber with one of our wishes granted. It is becoming quite easy to get the Government to move, because no sooner was our motion calling for the publication of statistics laid than the health secretary—or the First Minister; who knows?—decided that a new website would be launched to give the public the information that they need on A and E waiting times, with information on cancelled operations to follow in the coming months. I ask the cabinet secretary to explain the delay in publishing the figures for cancelled operations, given that The Herald was able to publish them on Monday.
We will have a new website with information on our health service for the public. That is welcome; it is a great idea. Which aspect of Labour’s five-point plan for the NHS will the cabinet secretary, or the First Minister, adopt next? Point 1 of our plan calls for a review of acute beds. That would be welcome, too. Since 2007, the Scottish National Party has cut beds by nearly 1,200.
Point 2 calls for mandatory annual cleanliness and safety inspections for A and E wards. My colleague Alex Rowley will talk in more detail about the shocking report, which was published last week, on the state of the A and E department at the Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy. I know that the health secretary will be as concerned as I am that beds, chairs and trolleys in that hospital have been contaminated with blood. Does she, or the First Minister, have a plan to address that?
Under point 3, as the health secretary will have heard at the weekend, Scottish Labour would introduce modern-day matrons in A and E to ease pressure and ensure the highest standards of cleanliness.