Meeting of the Parliament 26 October 2022
People are dying; they are dying avoidable deaths, and it will get worse during winter. Across the country, the Scottish Government continues to fail our Scottish national health service and our patients.
To be clear, that is not the fault of our hard-working clinical and support staff, who have gone beyond the call of duty and always will. However, those heroes really are at breaking point. The cabinet secretary should know that, and he would know it if he bothered to face the front line when he is on one of his well-documented PR drop-ins to one of our hospitals. The cabinet secretary just thanked and praised our staff, but he avoided Dr Moy in A and E when he went.
This debate is about responsibility and accountability, so let us consider the facts. Under the SNP, waiting times for A and E and cancer treatment are at their worst ever levels. In the second quarter of this year, more than one in 10 patients waited longer than 84 days to begin treatment, with one in 20 waiting 116 days. We even have one patient who was left 322 days before treatment began—and we are talking about cancer. As for routine treatments, over 7,000 people are languishing on in-patient waiting lists for more than two years, with the SNP breaking its promise to eradicate waits longer than 24 months by September.
While we are on the subject of broken promises, a near record number of patients are having their discharge from hospital delayed because there is no follow-on social care package in place and no space in residential care, yet the SNP promised to solve the problem of delayed discharge by the end of 2015.
The cabinet secretary is also failing our most vulnerable children. Over a quarter of young people referred to mental health services are not being seen within 18 weeks, yet the Government’s own target is to have 90 per cent of children seen by then.
I could go on, but I would run out of time. It is fair to say that there has been a catalogue of failures on the SNP’s watch. As I underscored in the Scottish Conservatives’ NHS debate last month, we have a record-breaking cabinet secretary; the trouble is that he is breaking the wrong kind of records. The First Minister and the cabinet secretary come to the chamber and make announcements, usually in the form of new spending plans. They are good—no; they are great—at spending taxpayers’ money, but they cannot deliver results or even get a squeaky-clean bill of health from the auditors.
For example, what happened following the September 2021 announcement of £10 million for long Covid support? Come May of this year, we found that the money would be spread over three years, with only £3 million being spent to start with, and we still do not know where that money is being spent. Let us not forget that, during that time, the number of Scots with long Covid rose from around 90,000 to 200,000, which is more than the population of Aberdeen.
It is just about headlines for the cabinet secretary. Winter is now fast approaching and it is plain to see that the SNP-Green Government is ill prepared. Its NHS recovery plan and winter plan are inadequate, and A and E waiting times alone are spiralling out of control.
We call on the cabinet secretary to go back to the drawing board and set out a clear plan to get our health services and patients through the next six months. We want to see more spending announcements with a clear target that can be audited. Patients—taxpayers—have a right to know how the Government is spending their money.
I should declare an interest—I am a practising NHS doctor.
I move amendment S6M-06437.2, to insert after “weekly basis,”:
“is equally concerned that cancer waiting times are at their worst level on record; expresses its disappointment at the Scottish Government’s failure to meet its target to end inpatient two-year treatment waits in most specialties; reminds the Scottish Government that it has never met its target to treat 90% of children with mental health issues within 18 weeks of referral; notes with concern the long ambulance waits being experienced across Scotland;”
15:08Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.