Meeting of the Parliament 21 February 2024
I, too, welcome Neil Gray to his new post and extend a welcome across the chamber to Tim Eagle. I know what it is like to join a new class halfway through term, so I wish him well.
I also pay tribute to all the hard-working NHS staff—those on the front lines, those supporting behind the scenes and everyone who worked through the pandemic. They all deserve our great thanks.
The debate provides a good opportunity to discuss our constituents’ experiences of primary care services. Everyone recognises the pressures that the NHS faced during the Covid-19 pandemic and the challenge of recovery, but years before the pandemic, issues were already building in the health service. Recruitment and retention of NHS staff from primary care throughout the health service have been issues for years. The problems did not start yesterday, nor are they the sole consequence of the pandemic.
The pandemic did present us with something new, however: long Covid. Constituents of mine have raised the issue of the lack of dedicated care for those living with it, with one parent saying:
“Our son is very unwell again and it is utterly devastating to see. The lack of support for children with long Covid and their families in Scotland is a national disgrace.”
Post the pandemic, staff are feeling overworked and undervalued, and we are seeing GP numbers reducing. Cuts to nursing and midwifery university places in 2011 by the then SNP health secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, are now coming home to roost. At that time, my party colleague Alison McInnes asked:
“If we aren't training enough nurses and midwives today, who is going to look after our ageing population in the years to come?”
At the end of last week, in my constituency, NHS Shetland was looking for a salaried GP in Unst and another in Lerwick, as well as a psychiatric nurse team leader. The surgery in Hillswick has been advertising a GP post for well over a year and, within the past year, the community of Fetlar struggled to fill nurse cover for the island. Those adverts are for primary care posts. Overall, NHS Shetland has been advertising to fill 14 posts, ranging from GPs to support services.
As islanders, those in the communities that I have mentioned are fully aware of the unique circumstances in which they find themselves. Every community and every individual is entitled to healthcare, and where that cover is missing, it has a greater and disproportionate impact on small communities who have already done everything to extend, supplement and retain existing provision.
As with urban areas, island and rural areas face significant challenges to healthcare provision, such as ageing populations, depopulation and geography. In turn, the reasons behind depopulation and ageing populations are keeping healthcare posts from being filled. Where will the new GP or nurse live, given the shortage of housing to rent or buy? What attracts a healthcare professional to an island community when ferries do not run and are unreliable in providing lifeline services? That is just one way in which travel concerns significantly impact on patients in rural and island areas.