Short-changed NHS Lothian needs share of extra cash from UK Government – Miles Briggs

NHS Lothian is struggling to keep its head above water after years of under-funding by the Scottish Government, writes Miles Briggs.

QUIT: NHS Lothian chair Brian Houston (Picture: Ian Georgeson)

Edinburgh Evening News readers will be acutely aware of the challenges faced by NHS Lothian, from the delay to the new Sick Kids to the social care crisis which Edinburgh is currently gripped by. We are seeing patients waiting times for A&E at the longest on record and people having to wait for over a year for routine operations such as a hip replacement.

After 13 long years of SNP Health Secretaries being in total control of our NHS in Scotland, Jeane Freeman refuses to accept any blame for health board performances and whenever something goes wrong all we hear is a blame game. This lack of leadership is one of the main reasons why we are in the situation we are in, but the buck stops with failing ministers and the SNP Government. Patients and NHS staff deserve better than this.

Last week the concerning leadership vacuum facing NHS Lothian came to ahead when Brian Houston, the chairman of NHS Lothian, was so exacerbated with the situation that he felt the need to stand down, in his resignation letter he cited “fundamental and irreconcilable differences” with Health Secretary Jeane Freeman. Given all the ongoing problems facing NHS Lothian, you would think it would be important in the interests of transparency and accountability that these ‘differences’ are made known. Sadly in Parliament this week, when challenged by MSPs from across all parties, Jeane Freeman failed to answer a single question or provide any detail. It should concern even the most committed Nationalist that any of our senior NHS leaders finds it so impossible to work with the Cabinet Secretary that he if forced to resign from post.

One of the pressures which we know is impacting on NHS Lothian is the underfunding of the health board by SNP ministers. NHS Lothian has been short-changed year after year by the Scottish Government and we are now in a situation where hospitals are under resourced, staff are under immense pressure and patients are suffering.

In Brian Houston’s resignation letter, he stated “other boards have received tens of millions of over and above their allocation while NHS Lothian has received tens of millions below it” which he said put a “major limitation” on NHS Lothian”. I have consistently called on SNP ministers to act and for fair funding for our local health services.

Jeane Freeman has not acknowledged any of considerable concerns raised by Mr Houston, instead preferring simply to desperately try to move this latest crisis in senior NHS leadership on. Whoever his successor will be they will face the same challenges that Mr Houston did. The truth is we have an SNP Government which is failing to provide the resources patients and NHS staff across Edinburgh and Lothian needs, even though NHS staff have consistently told them about the requirement for a “fundamental step change in infrastructure and capacity to serve a population that is growing at twice the Scottish average”.

That is why Scottish Conservatives have called on SNP ministers to use the record funding coming from the UK Conservative Government to deliver change. For NHS Lothian to function effectively, they have to be able to plan for the future, but at the moment they are struggling to keep their head above water and SNP ministers aren’t throwing them a life buoy. That’s why we need to see funding parity for NHS Lothian, so that the health board is in a position where they have the resources need to take forward long-term sustainable improvements to services.

Miles Briggs is a Conservative MSP for Lothian