Humza Yousaf and the Scottish Nationalist’s mismanagement of Scotland’s National Health Service worsens as waiting times reach “life-threatening” levels. This comes as Covid-19 hospitalisations remain at low levels. With Accident and Emergency departments at breaking point, the NHS has asked patients to call NHS 24 before coming to hospital, however, the SNP’s mismanagement of Scotland’s entire health service has made this advice harder to follow.
The latest statistics revealed by Public Health Scotland show that over 1,300 patients were left waiting over eight hours to be seen in Accident and Emergency departments throughout Scotland in the first week of February. In that same week, almost 500 patients were forced to wait over 12 hours to be seen in emergency situations. With just 74.4% of patients being seen within 4 hours, the Scottish Government’s 95% target is getting further and further away, having not been met for over 18 months. This is resulting in patients dying from illnesses and injuries that could have been treatable if they were not left for hours on end.
Due to the Scottish Government’s mismanagement of the NHS’s Accident and Emergency services, the NHS has asked patients to call NHS 24 before attending hospital. This is an entirely effective filtering method that has worked in the past, however due to the SNP’s mismanagement, the NHS’ staffing issues these phone calls are being missed. Newly released data by NHS 24 themselves shows that over 240,000 calls to the service between September and January last went unanswered. On the sample date of the 3rd of January, 49.7% of calls to the service were left abandoned. When calls are abandoned it often means that a patient has called up but has been stuck waiting for the phone to be answered for too long a time. This means patients are waiting longer than they would be if they went straight to A and E, which is what this service is supposed to avoid.
Scottish Conservative Shadow Health Minister, Dr Sandesh Gulhane, stated that:
“Patients have been encouraged to use NHS 24 as a first port of call before going to Scotland’s desperately over-stretched A&E wards, so some of these calls will relate to serious conditions. This has created another dangerous bottleneck in our NHS, which is at absolute breaking point under the SNP. Potentially life-threatening incidents are likely to have been missed as a result of so many calls not being connected. Having an average of almost 50,000 calls a month going unanswered is completely unacceptable and unsustainable. It is systematic of a health service in crisis on the SNP’s watch despite the heroic efforts of those working and volunteering in our NHS. These figures must act as a catalyst for the SNP’s Health Secretary to urgently outline a plan that will guarantee patients can be confident their calls to NHS24 will be answered at all times.”
This is just one of many times that Humza Yousaf has proven to be incapable of managing Scotland’s most important public service, which calls into question Nicola Sturgeon’s priorities in deciding who runs important government services. The NHS is at breaking point, and Scotland needs proper governance.