Meeting of the Parliament 10 November 2022
I will come to the pretty impressive committee report, but we simply cannot ignore the context. I have never seen primary care in the state that it is in now. Patients call repeatedly day after day to get appointments. Doctors are under incredible strain and are often burned out. Many are leaving the profession or going part time, and practices are closing down. All that puts more strain on those who remain.
Even pharmacies are closing down. The ramifications for the rest of the NHS are evident, too, with ambulances queueing up outside hospitals, long waits at accident and emergency departments, long waits for treatment and even longer waits for mental health treatment.
On social care, there are thousands of people without care packages who are stuck at home or stuck in hospital, which also compounds the problem for the NHS. Now the nurses are on the verge of a strike: nurses never go on strike. That is how bad it has become. The situation is incredibly dark. The BMA talks of people being at breaking point, about burnout, about demoralisation and about departure.
Yes, the pandemic has had an impact. I agree with the health secretary on that, but the Government’s negligence and complacency over many years are far bigger factors.
Former NHS Scotland chief executive Paul Gray says that the problems have been building for years, since well before the pandemic. Let us remind ourselves of what he has said, which was that
“The current system was going to be overwhelmed regardless of Covid. The virus has simply brought the date of that event forward”.
The reasons for that, after 15 years of this Government, include inadequate reforms, poor workforce planning for the multidisciplinary team—