By Bill Heaney
Doctors are sick to the teeth of health board officials reminding them that they are in charge of the NHS – not the medics.
And that too much red tape and constant reminders that instructions from the pin-striped suits and skirts are a major reason why hospital waiting times have got out of control and A&E departments are in chaos.
Not just that, but nurses and even ambulance crews have embraced the newly imposed NHS culture, which has been designed to set an unacceptably high bar for new patients to get into hospital for treatment .
The turf war between the suits and the medics is said to have spoiled the once warm atmosphere in the wards by the constant pestering of patients to go home before they were fully recovered because of the exaggerated bed-blocking “crisis”.
Junior doctors and consultants, who were told to abandon their white coats, take off their ties, roll up their sleeves and wear masks, disposable aprons and other PPE, became indistinguishable from the public using hospitals and GP surgeries.
The prestige that went with the old customs and practice was lost to them. The medics were no longer in charge.
Many of them believe there has been an over-reaction to the Covid pandemic which caused the safety measures to be introduced – and are still being put in place – became a political football and grew exponentially in consequence.
Tory leader Douglas Ross clashed with First Minister John Swinney over NHS crisis.
Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board chairman John Brown retired earlier this year and was joined recently by Chief Executive Jane Grant after calls from Dame Jackie Baillie MSP, the Scottish Labour spokesperson on health matters, for a clear-out at the top in JB Russell, their headquarters at Gartnavel in Glasgow.
There was widespread embarrassment over the deficiencies in the construction of the new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and deaths that allegedly resulted in consequence of this became the subject of massive bad publicity and a judge-led inquiry.
The atmosphere in the hospitals is said to be at an all time low.
It became obvious last night (Friday) that NHS Scotland is in a very bad place when Jackie Baillie added to what Anas Sarwar and Douglas Ross said at FMQs: “It is simply disgraceful that Scotland’s consultants have been forced into dispute due to the intransigence of this SNP government.
“While crowing about the lack of strikes in Scotland’s NHS, this SNP government has failed to listen to Scotland’s doctors and support them in their work.
“The NHS has been plunged into crisis by the SNP – with hundreds of thousands of Scots paying the price.
“Under the SNP, Scots are being forced to go private for vital treatment and the founding principles of our NHS have been eroded.
“Only a vote for Scottish Labour is a vote to cut waiting lists, keep our NHS public, support doctors and deliver the change we need.”
After wishing the Scotland team well in the European Championship, Tory leader Douglas Ross was straight in with the boot on First Minister John Swinney at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday.
He said that during the election debate in Glasgow – these things expand in proportion to the time allocated to them – Anna McLintock asked John Swinney what he would do to improve Scotland’s health service.
Mr Ross said: “She spoke about her 93-year-old mother, who needed urgent care but had to wait six hours for an ambulance to arrive and then another two hours outside the hospital before she was admitted.
“John Swinney did not have answers for Anna on Tuesday, so what does he say to her now, and to so many other people across Scotland who have found themselves in the same situation?”
“One of the challenges that we face is the volume of demand for health service utilisation in Scotland. There is also a challenge because of the level of delayed discharges from hospitals, which means that our hospitals are operating at very high levels of occupancy.
“What we are doing about that is to try to work with local authorities to tackle the issue of delayed discharge. We have had extensive discussions. I, personally, have had discussions with the leadership of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care has followed that up to work to reduce delayed discharges and congestion in our hospitals.”
What the government is actually doing, according to our sources, is setting up crisis teams whose job it is to inspect and interview sick persons in their homes, while others scurry around trying to establish what bed space is available.
And where that is, which could be many miles away from their homes.
Remember that these are people are so ill that they and their families and GPs believe they require hospital treatment.
Mr Swinney added: “In addition, we are investing in our health service to the extent that we now have record levels of staffing to ensure that we can meet the needs and demands of the population in Scotland.
“Although I acknowledge that not everybody is getting the treatment that they require as quickly as they require it, a very focused effort is being undertaken within the Government and our health boards to make sure that that can be delivered in all localities in Scotland.”
“This Government has taken hard decisions about increasing tax on higher earners so that we can allocate more resources to the national health service.
“I accept that, even having undertaken that allocation of increased resources, there remain significant strains on the national health service.
“The point that I made on Tuesday evening—in the discussion in which Mr Ross and I were involved—is that we cannot have, as an outcome of this election, a continuation of the Conservative Government’s austerity, because that would be disastrous for the national health service.”
But Douglas Ross pressed on: “The national health service in Scotland has been under the remit of the SNP and John Swinney for 17 years. Another audience member said to Mr Swinney on Tuesday that he should not put the blame elsewhere but should take responsibility.
Hospitals serving West Dunbartonshire which come under the stewardship of the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board include Vale of Leven, the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Gartnavel , Inverclyde, the RAH and the Golden Jubilee.
“Again, we are getting the same from John Swinney—he is taking no responsibility for Scotland’s NHS. He said that the NHS should meet the needs of individuals, but it is not doing so. It is clear to all of us that it is not meeting the needs of individuals.
“Elderly people are routinely left waiting for care in our national health service for far longer than they should be. We have a response to a freedom of information request that shows just how stark the situation is. Patients who are aged over 100 are some of the most vulnerable in our communities.
“In just over a year, hundreds of them have been made to wait beyond the target treatment time in A and E departments. In more than 100 cases, people aged over 100 have been waiting more than 12 hours for emergency treatment.
“People who are over 100 are waiting for more than half a day to get emergency treatment in Scotland’s NHS. Those are only the figures for people aged over 100—many more elderly people are waiting in agony, too. John Swinney must surely agree that that is appalling and unacceptable. What is he going to do to fix it?”
“The solution to the problem is, as I said in my first answer, to work with local authorities to expand the provision of social care in the community to ensure that we address the delayed discharge issue.
“Ultimately, it comes back to the resources that are available to the national health service. I have set out that this Government has taken responsibility for that, because we have been prepared to take the hard decision to increase tax and ensure that more resources have been allocated to the national health service.”
“Our FOI query only shows the problems in A and E departments and in ambulance waiting times. However, as we have raised with the SNP many times, there is a crisis at every single level of Scotland’s NHS. The number of GP appointments has fallen by 146,000 in the past three years.
“Over the past 10 years, the number of GP practices has reduced in every single health board across the country. In rural areas, they are shutting at twice the rate of those in urban areas. People across Scotland do not have access to the healthcare that they need and deserve, and that has to change.”