More patients than ever left stranded in hospital


Figures released by NHS Scotland on Tuesday show that delayed discharge has hit record levels with 2030 people left stranded in hospital for want of a care package so that they can go back to living at home or move to a care home.
This is the heart of why the NHS is in crisis because it means 2030 hospital beds out of commission for elective surgical patients or for those being admitted from accident and emergency departments. This leads to cancelled operations, long waits in A&E and ambulances stacking up outside hospitals unable to get their patients inside. Remember, it costs hundreds of pounds a night to keep these patients in hospital, patients who neither need nor want to be there.
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Hide AdThese record-breaking numbers were published in the same week that Audit Scotland released its analysis of the state of the NHS in Scotland. They have concluded that the Scottish Government has no clear plan for navigating out of the challenges faced by our health service. Ministers are firefighting with no idea how to get things working for the long-run.
The upshot of all of this is that performance in our NHS is getting worse. Indeed another report, this time compiled by the Institute of Fiscal Studies said last week that our recovery from the pressures of the pandemic is lagging behind that of NHS England. It laid the blame for that squarely at the decision making or lack thereof of Scottish ministers.
Our NHS used to be the envy of the world, but too many people now can’t access the care they need. Staff are constantly overwhelmed. If you’re reading this then chances are that you are on a waiting list or that you know someone who is. When it comes to elective surgery or non-urgent care that reality is inconvenient and it can be painful, but nowhere is the pressure on our NHS more obvious than among those waiting for mental health support.
Last week marked 10 years since the Scottish Government established waiting times targets for both adults and children, struggling with their mental health and seeking care. In December 2014, and to some fanfare the SNP stated that anyone seeking mental health support should wait no more than 18 weeks to be seen. All told that target has been missed for almost 170,000 people since that announcement.
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Hide AdFor children in particular that can mean waits of two years and more. That is a gargantuan amount of time in a young life, it also underscores the disparity between mental and physical healthcare in this country. Put simply, if your daughter came off her bike and broke her arm, she’d be in plaster by the end of the day but if she came to you with depression or self-harming behaviour, she joins the longest queue in the NHS.
I’ve also been working hard on behalf of the thousands of people suffering the debilitating effects of long Covid, many of whom have been waiting years for proper pathways to effective treatments.
The SNP just cannot seem to get this right. The fact that we are falling behind England certainly speaks to that. We need to channel investment urgently to social care and to mental health. Furthermore, SNP ministers must admit that they’re on the wrong track, admit their three-year old NHS Recovery Plan has flopped, and get serious about rewriting it for the sake of retaining overworked staff, tackling long waits and fixing social care.
Alex Cole-Hamilton is MSP for Edinburgh Western and leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats