Meeting of the Parliament 16 January 2025
As other members have done, I thank Tim Eagle for bringing the debate to the chamber. The number of speakers and the pressure that is being brought to bear highlight just how important the issue of access to health and social care is to those of us who live in rural Scotland and, of course, on our islands, and to our constituents and communities.
There are a number of areas that I would have liked to cover today, but I am very conscious of time, so I will not be able to go into detail on all of them. However, I hope to cover some key areas of concern. As Tim Eagle did, I will start with GPs.
I recently met GPs in Orkney, who raised some of the challenges that they face, which have only increased over the years, seemingly with little response from the Scottish Government. The waits to see a GP have grown, as has the paperwork that they have to deal with—they spend hours on repeat prescriptions or meeting data requests from patients. Because all of that has to be delivered by GPs themselves, they have less time to spend dealing with patients, which only increases the pressures on the system.
I know from personal experience the pressure that social care is under. There are not enough carers, and there are not enough places in suitable accommodation for people who need care, so our hospitals are full of people who simply do not need to be there. That situation is not getting better; it is only getting worse.
Only last year, the Moss Park care home in Fort William was threatened with closure. The residents were prepared for resettlement in new homes. Understandably, they and their families were concerned that those new places would not be local and would not be in the communities that they grew up in, where they wanted to stay. There was also understandable concern in the community that the loss of places at the Moss Park care home would mean that staying in Fort William or even Lochaber would be impossible for local people in the future.
Although it appears that there has been a reprieve for the home, for how long will that be the case—a few years or slightly longer? That community in Fort William—current residents of the home and those who may need it shortly, and their families—deserve to know that care places will still be available locally in the future. At present, they cannot be confident that that will be the case.