The numbers of people not being seen within the target times for visiting Accident and Emergency has increased again, leading to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) issuing a statement stating, “The situation as we enter winter is dire. Month-on-month, more and more patients face longer and longer waits – that we know are associated with patient harm and death.”
In Fife, 67% of people were dealt with in the four hours – 28% below target – leading to nursing unions warning the shortage of staff poses a real threat to services. The numbers waiting over 8 hours have also increased from 316 in April to 785 in September and waiting over 12 hours from 73 people in April to 275 in September.
The bleak and worrying picture shows the current approach is not working and I call on Health Secretary Humza Yousaf MSP to put in place local recovery plans that set out the detail of the issues with clear actions on what has to be done to address them.
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh have also highlighted the need to address the challenges in social care and said; “It is the College’s view that our health service cannot operate without fully funded and functional social services.”
I have highlighted the issues around social care in the Scottish Parliament on a regular basis – unless the government addresses low pay, poor terms and conditions within the private care sector workforce the issue will continue.
Fife Council has now put more than 60% of the social care provision into the private sector because it was cheaper than delivering the service directly. The only reason it is cheaper is the pay, terms and conditions are much worse than the council pays its carers.
This is a really worrying situation that requires the SNP government to set out a clear plan of action to address the challenges.
That would require Mr Yousaf and NHS Fife to acknowledge the scale of the problems and to bring forward actions to address the main issues.
We see that NHS Tayside has much better response times every month and I have asked Humza Yousaf to look at what they are getting right and roll it out into Fife.
The government must also recognise that we need a whole service approach that addresses the problems across healthcare and the major issues in social care, all of which is leading to queues at the front door of the hospital.”
In terms of social care, the pay, terms and conditions are so much worse in the private sector that the private companies cannot retain the staff they have nevermind recruit more and this is the main issue that must be addressed.
Ministers must take their heads out of the sand and address these issues if we are to get these services through the winter.
