Meeting of the Parliament 03 March 2026 [Draft]
I thank Jackie Baillie for bringing the debate to the Holyrood chamber this evening.
It is a busy period, and Parliament is debating a number of new subjects, while the news continues to carry more extraordinary stories of global instability each day. However, one topic that has never gone away concerns the quality and efficiency of accident and emergency departments in Scotland. Ever since the Scottish Government first came to power in 2007, admission times have been a constant source of difficulty for the NHS, and they have gradually got worse over time.
It seems a distant memory when it was considered poor for a health board to see fewer than 95 per cent of patients within a four-hour timeframe. However, after years of cuts and incompetence, a performance even remotely close to that would today be considered a triumph. In fact, four hours used to be pretty much the only standard by which we would measure these things. The idea that someone would wait for eight, or even 12, hours, was so far-fetched that hardly anyone even bothered to record it. As we have heard, however, all of that has changed for the worse.
I am particularly concerned about the wellbeing of casualty departments in rural areas. I understand that the big city hospitals tend to get the headlines, but the constant threats to the very existence of rural health facilities haunt people in communities outside the central belt, who are already forced to travel long distances for certain treatments and appointments. The rural nature of those communities and the appallingly poor infrastructure are additional elements that people across South Scotland have no choice but to factor in.
We know well the impact that poor A and E services has on patients. There is the short-term pain of long waits, sometimes in extremely uncomfortable settings, and the medium-term impact of those delays on their health. In addition, in the long term, the issue plays into their fears that the NHS is quite simply not there for them when they need it. There is an impact on hard-working, hospital staff, too. None of this is their fault, and it impacts their wellbeing as well. Nevertheless, they are the ones who have to front up the consequences, constantly apologising for something that is in no way a reflection of their professionalism, attitude or ability.
Hospital staff are not the only workers who are affected by the A and E crisis. Paramedics, whose job on the streets is hard enough, are often stuck at the back door, as part of the delay, when they need to be back on the front line. Police officers, too, are being dragged into the mess. Just today, we read comments from the chief constable of Police Scotland, whose patience appears to have snapped with her force being used as a mental health intervention service. She rightly points out that police officers are there to deal with matters of law and order, not to spend their shift responding to repeated mental health call-outs. That is placing incredible strain on an already stressed policing frontline.
Whatever the Scottish Government is doing in relation to accident and emergency waiting times, it is not working, and it has not worked for years. We need to know how the ministers in charge of that intend to turn the tide. A failure to do so harms pretty much everyone involved, and—as we have heard tonight—a badly performing casualty unit provokes problems not only across the rest of the hospital, but across other vital emergency services, too.