Whilst the last year has been difficult, there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel. The vaccine is able to offer that light and hope but as we are seeing this week with more and more people locally getting Covid, we must remain cautious and vigilant and that does mean continuing to wear the masks and maintaining social distancing. NHS Fife and all the staff involved with the vaccination roll-out have done a tremendous job but the message must be clear that none of us are safe untill we all have had the vaccine. I hope you will join me in urging everyone you know to get vaccinated.
Along with other politicians I met with NHS Fife in a virtual meeting last week. I have asked them to provide detail on the extent of the backlog within health and social care services as well as the challenges in meeting the demand for services. It is important that we know what the issues are if we are to address them and I made the point that we had large waiting times and shortages of specialist doctors and nurses pre-pandemic. Many people have told me about waiting for appointments and treatments and in order to get on top of this we must have full transparency.
I also fear that as the furlough scheme winds down the true extent of the job losses will become apparent and many people will need access to support, training and new opportunities. That is why at every level of government we need to see a focussed economic recovery plan that puts people at its heart. In Scotland we face a choice about the future of our economy, one where we can invest in infrastructure, skills, training and jobs that creates a high skill high wage economy or if we simply leave it to the market and profiteers we will end up with a low skill low wage economy. Many talk about building back better but we need to start to see the detail of what that means.
