Meeting of the Parliament 17 January 2024
Once again, it was the pandemic that did it. That is the sole reason that we have heard from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care for the crisis that is engulfing our health and social care services. It is a damning admission that, two years on, Humza Yousaf’s plan is failing, but it also defies the reality that the seeds for the crisis were sown well before 2020.
Pre-pandemic, the Scottish Government received warning after warning, and alarm after alarm was sounded, about the risk to patients of the systematic underfunding, the absence of proper workforce planning and the lack of any clear plan for our health and social care services. As far back as 2017, the British Medical Association warned that the national health service was at breaking point, but there was a failure to listen to those warnings and to act. That incompetence has consequences for patients and staff.
A day rarely goes by when constituents do not share heartbreaking stories that show just how broken services are. A year ago, in the chamber, I told the story of Pat, who was receiving palliative care after a cancer diagnosis. Pat’s wish was to spend what time she had left at home. Her care needs were, of course, increasing, but that wish was not too much to ask. An assessment was made and a care package agreed, but there were no carers to deliver it. Marie Curie did what it could, as did the family, but the growing burden on Pat’s husband became too much. He was admitted to hospital and, tragically, that is where he remains. There were still no carers to take over, so Pat was also admitted to hospital, even though she was not receiving any medical treatment and could and should have been cared for at home. Sadly, Pat died in hospital.
Since then, things have got worse. I could share more tragic cases from my inbox. Constituents are being placed in care homes from hospital to fiddle the delayed discharge figures. Often, they are there for months and are miles from their families, waiting to go home, where they should be. Operations are routinely cancelled because beds are unnecessarily full due to delayed discharge.
Jackie Baillie listed many of the Government’s broken promises on health. Here is another one. Nine years ago, the SNP pledged to eradicate delayed discharge within a year. Today, delayed discharge has spiralled out of control and has drained £1.2 billion from our NHS over the past decade. In Dumfries and Galloway alone, between 2015 and 2023, the bill for it was a staggering £40 million, which is money that we could have used to pay carers a proper wage.
No service or constituent in my region has been left untouched by the crisis that is engulfing health and social care. Care homes have closed, community hospitals have closed, GP surgeries have closed and dentists have closed. Indeed, more than 20,000 patients in Dumfries and Galloway alone have been de-registered from the NHS recently. People cannot register with an NHS dentist in that region; there is no waiting list because there is nobody to register with in order to join a waiting list.
We have heard increasing concerns that the NHS is unsustainable in its current form, but the reality is that it is this Scottish Government’s negligence that is unsustainable. Its failure to take responsibility and to act decisively is a real threat to the future of our national health service. We need the Government to stop ignoring the warnings and to finally make good on its promise to eradicate delayed discharge. We need a long-term plan to tackle the low level of sheltered housing and the loss of care homes locally, and we need the Government to pay our care workers properly.
At a time when the national minimum wage will rise to £11.45 per hour from April, the Government’s pledge to pay carers just 56p more will make little difference to filling vacancies. However, listening to the calls from unions and from Labour to pay care workers a fair wage, with a clear timescale for moving towards £15 per hour and proper career progression, would help with the recruitment crisis. That would free up hospital beds and, ultimately, reduce the long waits for treatment. That is the least that patients and our dedicated, hard-working staff deserve.
16:36