CURRENT party manifestos are making grand promises about how they will improve health care. However, the Nuffield Trust has just reported that both Labour and Tory NHS funding proposals would leave the NHS worse off than under austerity and that the level of funding increases would leave them struggling to pay existing staff costs, let alone be able to cover the promised massive increases in doctors and so on. The NHS in Scotland is devolved to the Scottish Parliament and all policy and spending decisions are made in Scotland.
When criticised about waiting times in A&E departments in Scotland, the answer from John Swinney and his predecessors has consistently been “but our A&E figures are better than in England”. I think they could also confidently make the same claim that they are better than in Rwanda, Congo, and Nigeria. Over 1,600 people per annum in Scotland die needlessly because of the impossible pressure on A&E departments.
The A&E target set by the Scottish Government for 95% of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred within four hours was last met in July 2020 during lockdown when the number of visits to A&E plummeted. A new analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine revealed that on a typical Monday night in Scotland, out of 826 A&E patients, 106 were treated in corridors. A&E departments are not safe places to be admitted to and staff cannot deliver adequate standards of care.
The stress on medical and nursing staff is not sustainable and m.
