Burning Issue: Is SNP health policy helping precipitate a winter hospital crisis?

Published on Sunday 11 January 2009 21:22

Yes CATHY JAMIESON Labour MSP and party spokeswoman on health

THE facts speak for themselves – the number of available beds has fallen by more than 100 in Scottish hospitals to 17,341 last year, from 17,459 the previous year.

The complacency of Nicola Sturgeon, the health secretary, has left the NHS more exposed to a winter crisis than at any time in the past decade.

There is simply no excuse for hospital wards existing without adequate heating or for elderly patients having to spend hours on trolleys because of bed shortages.

Doctors, nurses and other staff in the Scottish health service are doing their best but are being let down by a government that has failed to provide the right resources or plan effectively for the winter.

One of my first priorities as health secretary in a Labour administration at Holyrood would be to increase the number of NHS beds available to clinicians.

I am disappointed that the SNP's budget does not show nearly enough ambition for the NHS and will not create a single extra NHS bed.

Labour warned the Scottish Government that it had failed to ensure the NHS was ready for the winter – the lack of funding was always going to impact on front-line services and the patients deserve better than the excuses they are getting from the SNP.

Ms Sturgeon needs to stop making those excuses, and get a grip. Under her watch, bed blocking has doubled, after she said that she would eradicate bed blocking. What we have seen this past week in our hospitals is unforgivable. The SNP needs to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

No

SHONA ROBISON

SNP MSP and public health minister

THIS SNP government has increased spending per head on health in Scotland to record levels. The level of investment to NHS Scotland will exceed 11 billion by 2010-11.

Labour's baseless scaremongering over the number of NHS beds is ill-judged, and an insult to the hardworking staff whose efforts are delivering first-class NHS services over the winter months. Cathy Jamieson should be red with embarrassment at issuing such a hypocritical statement.

One of the reasons Labour was flung out of office in Scotland was its abysmal failure on health; under Labour, the number of beds in the Scottish NHS fell by 1,300.

The reality is we now need fewer long-stay beds to cater for elderly or disabled people, who can increasingly be cared for in their homes or in the community; medical advances reduce the length of hospital stays; many procedures are now done on an out-patient basis, and the NHS is making better use of available beds.

Let's not forget, if Labour had been returned to office in 2007, it would have closed the accident and emergency units at Monklands and Ayr. It was the SNP government that saved them and we are building a brand new Southern General Hospital in Glasgow using traditional public procurement that will bring significant savings to the public purse when compared with the costly PFI/PPP funding methods preferred by Labour.

In addition, this government is phasing out prescription charges and has recently abolished car parking charges in all NHS hospitals, with the exception of three PFI-built hospital car parks constructed under Labour's watch.