Meeting of the Parliament 17 January 2024
I draw members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests as a practising NHS general practitioner.
There we have it: everything is fine here—there is no problem. The cabinet secretary says that our health service is rosy. In December 2023, only 66 per cent of patients at A and E were seen within four hours. Between July and September 2023, only 72 per cent of cancer patients began treatment within the statutory 62 days of an urgent referral. Another month, another set of dismal data. Another quarter, more failure.
We are sounding like a broken record, but the SNP just does not seem to care. It takes no responsibility, safe in the knowledge that the Scottish Greens have its back for the price of two ministerial limos.
Maybe we should stop talking about statistics and percentages and instead highlight what really matters: people’s lives. According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, an extra 1,400 avoidable deaths were linked to long A and E wait times in 2023. Those are 1,400 people, not numbers on a spreadsheet.
I want to be crystal clear that nobody is criticising our front-line staff—they go far beyond the call of duty. However, this incompetent SNP Government has left healthcare on its knees. Humza Yousaf, Michael Matheson and one health minister after another have offered no solutions. Scotland needs and deserves a fresh approach to deliver a modern, efficient and local NHS that is accessible to all, but instead the SNP has dithered and watched Scotland’s GP workforce shrink.
Scotland has had enough of the SNP playbook in which the First Minister or the cabinet secretary comes to the chamber, makes an announcement, fails to deliver on it, and then defends their record by tripping out spin and promising that lessons will be learned.
Let us take access to child and adolescent mental health services. Humza Yousaf promised to clear CAMHS waiting lists by March 2023, yet by September 2023 more than 5,000 children were still waiting to start treatment. One child has been waiting 37 weeks in Glasgow; some people have waited a year in Lothian. That matters, because poor mental health robs our kids of their childhood.