Meeting of the Parliament 03 March 2026 [Draft]
I say to the cabinet secretary that this is 2026: where is the Covid recovery plan that we were promised way back by the health secretary, two predecessors ago?
The trouble is that if patients cannot get to see a GP or get through to NHS 24, where do they go? They end up at the front door of A and E, probably with a problem that has deteriorated.
I have received a number of emails from people in my South Scotland region about minor injuries clinics being closed, being relocated to a central area or having their opening times reduced. That means that more people are being funnelled through A and E. The current Scottish Government promised that, by summer 2025, every type 1 emergency department would have direct access to specialist frailty team staffing, but that pledge has yet to be delivered. That means that, as Scotland’s population ages, A and E staff also have to deal with frailty issues that could have been addressed through a frailty clinic.
What are the outcomes of that? A Herald investigation revealed that the three A and E departments in Lanarkshire had exceeded capacity in at least 10 of the past 12 months, with Wishaw operating at 225 per cent of capacity last December. The problem is that we have no step-up or step-down care, so we have bed blocking. The lack of co-ordinated workforce planning and social care leads to exactly the problems that were highlighted earlier—ambulance queues outside A and E and corridor care becoming more of a norm than it ever should be.
The system needs to change. We need to either reduce the numbers of people coming to the front door or increase the staff head count. I would say that we need to do both—we need a complete overhaul of the system. I have talked a lot about A and E and the need for prevention, technology and workforce planning. How often have we talked about workforce planning in the chamber in the 10 years that I have been in Parliament? The Scottish Government is letting patients and staff down, and it is time for change. I thank Jackie Baillie for bringing this incredibly important debate to the chamber.