Meeting of the Parliament 02 March 2017
Absolutely not—I welcome the Bliss Scotland report but if we look at the report’s findings, it is not a record to be proud of; it is a record to be ashamed of. The report talks about three quarters of units not having enough nurses or staff to meet minimum standards. The cabinet secretary wants to congratulate herself on the fact that three quarters of units do not meet minimum standards. Again, how is that going to improve patient safety?
The continued cuts to social care budgets mean that we have chronic problems with delayed discharge. More than half a million bed days were lost in one year alone, with patients trapped in hospital, waiting to go home. I ask the cabinet secretary: how is that going to improve patient safety?
In a separate report, Audit Scotland says that the spiralling cost of private agency spend is now up to £175 million a year. Audit Scotland also states:
“Agency staff are likely to be more expensive than bank nurses, and also pose a greater potential risk to patient safety and the quality of care”.
That is Audit Scotland saying that—not me. How is that going to improve patient safety?
I have explored the patient safety programme web pages and I found an interesting article that referred to a meeting of senior NHS managers in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. They posed three questions at the meeting—remember, this is part of the patient safety programme. First, why is the largest health board in Scotland in persistent financial overparity—that is civil service speak—despite extensive efforts to overcome that via efficiency savings? Secondly, how will it be able to squeeze services into a smaller bed complement in the new hospital on the south side when demand is increasingly exceeding supply?