Meeting of the Parliament 03 April 2019
I am delighted to speak in the debate. I refer members to my register of interests: I have a close family member who is an NHS healthcare professional.
As the Parliament knows, my big passion lies in the preventable health conditions agenda. The escalating cost of the treatment of preventable conditions to the NHS is unsustainable. We are not managing the sustainability of the NHS; rather, we are managing its demise. We know the conditions that we are talking about: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obesity, preventable cancers, musculoskeletal conditions, mental health, stroke and so on.
If we are to maintain the long-term future of our most precious public service as being free at the point of delivery, it is crucial that policy tackles that issue. In developing a strategy, we must ensure that we have a delivery mechanism; our NHS staff will be key to that delivery.
Last year, I wrote a paper about changing Scotland’s relationship with food, drink and physical activity. The first action point noted that, when we ask our healthcare professionals to look after us and deliver a healthier wellbeing message, our first step must be to look after the health of our healthcare professionals. In so many cases, our healthcare professionals work in an environment that leads them to be more unhealthy than the people to whom they are delivering the health message. We need an environment in which they are able to look after their own health and wellbeing, so that they can adopt the active healthy lifestyle that we ask them to recommend to others. That should be the foundation of any strategy.
On the face of it, some potential interventions are reasonably straightforward. We must ensure that every staff member has access to a hot meal during their shift and adequate break time in which to eat it. Some hospitals do not allow a fridge or microwave in their staff rooms, which leaves night-shift staff with a vending machine as their only option. With regard to Monica Lennon’s point about yoga classes, another example is allowing staff to utilise any on-site facility, such as gym equipment in the physio department, and giving them instruction and time to do so.
If we are asking our healthcare professionals to deliver a service that has a focus on getting the population to be more physically active and nutritionally aware, it is obvious that we need to afford them the very same opportunities. Without that step, the subsequent steps become problematic.
The quality of care in that environment, not to mention the health of the healthcare professionals could be greatly enhanced, resulting in a reduction in absenteeism for both physical and mental health issues. We believe that that would allow healthcare professionals to deliver the kind of preventative and acute care that they want to deliver.
For example, the cardiac physiotherapy department in Crosshouse hospital in NHS Ayrshire and Arran has been running an extended community rehabilitation programme that not only helps chest, heart and stroke sufferers, but welcomes people with other conditions, such as obesity and musculoskeletal conditions. The comorbidity exercise and education classes have been successful in reducing re-admissions to hospital and doctors’ appointments, and they have been instrumental in increasing the quality of life for those suffering with those conditions. Those are the innovative and creative solutions that our healthcare professionals can come up with if they are given the support, room and encouragement to apply their knowledge.
It is disappointing, therefore, to read the amendment from the cabinet secretary, who toes the SNP line of trying to blame Brexit for everything. There are staff shortages, and they were there long before Brexit. Will she consider the impact on the current staffing rates of Nicola Sturgeon cutting nursing and midwifery places in 2012? That was poor workforce planning.
There are multiple Scottish applications for every training place for nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and doctors at medical schools. The reason for the shortage—especially among Scottish applications—is that the Scottish Government has capped the number of places.