Monday 18th August 2014<\/p>\n
PRESSURES ON THE NHS<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The NHS is one of the Labour Party\u2019s proudest creations. For decades it has provided people with security and care at the point of need. \u00a0Sadly, however, it would appear that all is not well with our beloved institution.<\/p>\n In the last year we have had staff speak out about the enormous pressures they are under, elderly patients being left on trolley\u2019s in corridors and A&E waiting times being missed.<\/p>\n If this wasn\u2019t enough, only last week, an investigation by the BBC found that hospitals across Scotland were operating above capacity. Indeed, according to the broadcaster the lack of beds in medical wards at Inverclyde Royal Hospital led to occupancy rates which medical professionals would deem to be unsafe.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>This has been reinforced by data I have obtained under freedom of information laws which shows that in August and September last year, the General Medicine wards at the IRH were operating at over 90% and the Palliative Care wards were operating at 100%.<\/p>\n To put this in some sort of perspective, Dr Neil Dewhurst \u2013 the former head of the Royal College of Physicians and one of Scotland\u2019s senior doctors \u2013 has said that if the rate goes above 85% then the risk of harm to patients\u2019 increases.<\/p>\n The Scottish Government \u2013 which is responsible for the NHS in Scotland \u2013 has disputed the BBC\u2019s findings.\u00a0 However, irrespective of what the government says, the data released to me shows that a number of wards at the IRH have operated above levels which Dr Dewhurst would deem to be safe.<\/p>\n The Cabinet Secretary for Health, Alex Neil, must address this serious problem which is impacting on staff and the most vulnerable patients. One wonders if the Scottish Government hadn\u2019t been so focused on the Independence debate our NHS would be in better health.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday 18th August 2014 PRESSURES ON THE NHS The NHS is one of the Labour Party\u2019s proudest creations. For decades it has provided people with security and care at the point of need. \u00a0Sadly, however, it would appear that all is not well with our beloved institution. In the last year we have had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holyrood-message"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/duncanmcneil.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}