Hansard

Another week, and more appalling figures on the performance of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport. This is not a one-off; it is the latest in a series of failures by this cabinet secretary. Although the Tory motion and the Government amendment focus on the financial impact, which is an important issue, both ignore the human consequences: the consequences for NHS staff, who continue to go above and beyond, and for NHS patients, who are being let down by the failings of this Government.

Every time that there is a failure, we get the same old warm words and tired excuses from this health secretary when, year on year, her performance is declining. The declining performance on workforce includes more than 3,000 nursing vacancies; one in three GP practices reporting a vacancy, with GP practices closing lists and some closing down; hundreds of consultant vacancies; and a doubling in the rate of early retirement on the health secretary’s watch.

Shona Robison is right to thank the staff, but her thanks are not enough. We cannot continue to overwork, underresource and undervalue staff without there being human consequences. We heard last week from the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health that, such is the pressure on staff, there are now real fears over patient safety. Members should not forget that it was the cabinet secretary’s best friend, Nicola Sturgeon, who as health secretary cut the number of nurse and midwife training places. We are now living with the dangerous consequences: our NHS is in the midst of a workforce crisis, for which Shona Robison must take responsibility.

I turn to the failure over delayed discharge. In February 2015, Shona Robison promised:

“I want over the course of this year to eradicate delayed discharge ... and I am absolutely determined to do that.”

However, since that promise, more than 1.6 million bed days have been lost to delayed discharge and that has cost the NHS £380 million. Worse than the financial cost has been the human cost. More than 1,000 patients have died while trapped in hospital as a delayed discharge—another failure of this health secretary.

Cancer is a national priority. In the past year, more than 1,700 people who were suspected of having cancer had to wait longer than the expected treatment standard. Even after being referred for treatment by doctors, more than 1,200 people with cancer had to wait longer than the expected treatment standard. Those are shocking figures that expose the failure of this health secretary. Today, unbelievably, the health secretary has sneaked out the report that I am holding up, which shows that, rather than improving its performance, the Government’s plan is to scrap the waiting time standard for cancer. That is shameful behaviour from a shameless health secretary. [Interruption.] I am holding the report here, and the cabinet secretary wrote the foreword. There was no press release alongside it—it was snuck out today.

So far in 2018, in our A and E departments, more than 52,000 people have waited longer than four hours. More than 7,000 have waited longer than eight hours. Unbelievably, almost 2,000 have waited for more than 12 hours. That figure is the same as the figure for the whole of 2017—another failure of this cabinet secretary.

To date, more than 3,000 operations have been cancelled in 2018 due to capacity or non-clinical reasons because hospitals could not cope. That is the consequence of the health secretary’s workforce crisis. On the ambulance service, last week, Richard Leonard shared the terrible story of Margaret Goodman, but we know that that is not an isolated case. In 2017, more than 16,000 people waited more than an hour for an emergency ambulance. That is 16,000 emergency patients failed by Shona Robison.

On budgets, health boards are having to make more than £1 billion-worth of cuts over the next four years. In the health secretary’s own backyard, NHS Tayside is having to make £200 million-worth of cuts over the next five years. The result is the health secretary’s own health board taking money from charitable donations to support an IT system because of budget cuts imposed on it by the health secretary.

So many people have been failed—3,000 on operations, 16,000 ambulance patients, 52,000 in A and E, 1,200 on cancer waiting times and 1,700 who have been suspected of having cancer. Some 1.6 million bed days have been lost to delayed discharge. She owes not just one apology but thousands of apologies to patients across the country, yet there is no shame, no accountability and no responsibility from Shona Robison.

The uncomfortable truth is that it is not just Opposition parties, NHS staff and patients who have lost confidence in her. Even SNP back benchers are now briefing the media and calling on Shona Robison to go. We have the bring back Alex Neil campaign, led by Alex Neil, and we even have Jeane Freeman telling the media about how brilliant Jeane Freeman would be as the health secretary. In fact, it appears there are only two people in the chamber who do not think that Shona Robison should go: Nicola Sturgeon and Miles Briggs. Although I understand why the Tories would not want to talk about failing Government ministers resigning, who would have thought that it would be they who provided a fig leaf for the failings of Shona Robison?