Critical academic report highlights SNP health shortfalls - Sue Webber

We know 1172 people died from drug abuse in 2023, a 12 per cent increase on 2022, and this week provisional data revealed there have already been 589 suspected drug deaths in the first six months of 2024. As a two per cent drop from the same period in 2023, some might mistakenly claim a corner is being turned, but it’s five per cent up on 2022. In other words, nothing is changing.

It was also revealed this week that 1277 people died in 2023 from alcohol-related illnesses, a 15-year high. After 17 years of being responsible for Scottish health and education, to lose 2449 people to avoidable addiction-related causes is as damning an indictment of the SNPs record as it’s possible to imagine.

SNP politicians should hang their heads in shame, but of course they won’t, relying on platitudes and empty expressions of sorrow while doing nothing meaningful to reverse these appalling trends. We know this because another report this week, from Strathclyde University’s Scottish Health Equity Research Unit said there was a “critical gap” between the SNP’s understanding of inequalities and what worked to tackle them.

While fond of announcing strategies and policies, the academics found SNP politicians lacked a “rigorous evaluation of their effectiveness”. That means the SNP’s warm words and promises of action amount to nothing because either little will happen or they have no idea if what they say they’ll do will make any difference.

Damning statistic after damning statistic bears this out, whether it is these awful death rates, treatment waiting times, educational achievement, house construction or any bread-and-butter responsibility which requires anything more than just splurging money.

Having presided over the dismantling of vital drug rehab services and in light of the dreadful alcohol deaths data, this week I asked what the Scottish Government was doing to preserve the residential programme for people with Alcohol Related Brain Damage (ARBD) provided by Penumbra Milestone partnership, a vital service which saves hospital in-patient bed days by 2000 a year, crucial if waiting times are to be cut.

It’s now under threat of closure by NHS Lothian and the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board with the City Council to cut costs, and when I questioned health minister Jenni Minto in the Scottish Parliament, she admitted there had been no official contact with NHS Lothian and only gave a vague commitment to “consider the implications” if such a decision was taken.

She could have promised to examine the situation, but it means if closure is planned the Scottish Government will be at best reacting to a decision, not getting a grip before it’s too late. No wonder our public services are failing, run by a government which doesn’t recognise decisive action when it’s staring them in the face.

I’m sure Ms Minto is well-meaning, but if she’s unsure about the value of a service which keeps people out of hospital and into rehab amid an epidemic of lethal addiction, then the disgraceful title of Europe’s sickest nation will remain.

Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative Lothian MSP