Robison ‘not up to job,’ says Dumbarton MSP Baillie

MSP Jackie Baillie and Health Secretary Shona Robison.

Figures released by ISD Scotland show that Shona Robison’s broken promise to eradicate delayed discharge has cost NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde over £48 million since she made the promise in February 2015.

The Health Secretary pledged to eradicate delayed discharge, the process by which a patient is stuck in hospital despite being medically cleared to leave, by the end of that year. However, three years later NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has lost 206,049 bed days to delayed discharge which has costed millions of pounds.

Staff in hospitals across Greater Glasgow and Clyde are overstretched, over worked and under resourced and this money could have been reinvested in under pressure services.

Local MSP Jackie Baillie said: “Yet another of Shona Robison’s broken promises is costing our NHS millions. Across Scotland, the process has cost over £392million, and in Greater Glasgow and Clyde alone delayed discharge has racked up a bill of over £48million.

“Last week we also learned that A&E waiting times targets had been missed every month for a year in Greater Glasgow and Clyde and that hundreds of patients have been left waiting more than 18 weeks to access mental health services.

“Patients and staff deserve so much better than a Health Secretary who is not up to the job. She has lost control of our health service and the impact is being felt by hard working staff and the patients who are left waiting.”