Readers' Letters: Let more GPs carry out routine procedures to cut NHS waiting lists

Lockdown increased an existing backlog in the NHS, and as your editorial said yesterday, people are paying for private treatment.

Humza Yousaf promised to cut NHS waiting lists dramatically when he was Scottish Health Secretary (Picture: Peter Summers/Getty Images)

But that creates further delay, as a surgeon performing a private operation can’t be doing one for the NHS.

So until all those being treated privately have been treated, there will be a kind of secondary NHS waiting list building up, consisting of those who simply can’t afford the huge cost of private treatment.

This undesirable situation points to better use of money and a revision in healthcare strategy to maximise use of personnel. For a start, GPs could be trained in common surgical procedures such as hips, knees and cataracts, and new operating facilities built. Lockdown showed just how quickly that could be done. Otherwise the existing NHS model will fail, and the only way its waiting list can shrink will be by those on it dying.

Malcolm Parkin, Kinnesswood, Perth and Kinross

False hope

Given Humza Yousaf’s track record, it’s little wonder that his pledge to “eradicate” one-year waiting times to see a nurse or doctor as an outpatient has not been kept.

It’s very easy to make a headline-grabbing soundbite but more difficult to achieve when there's not a credible plan. Health professions struggle to fulfil the Scottish Government’s promises and targets but the crux of the matter is that long-term pain sufferers and those with real fears about their health are given false hope, which is then dashed as the months go on without treatment.

Let’s see a proper blueprint as to how the NHS can be improved, with a plan that is credible and in which the public can have confidence. Until then our politicians’ muddled thinking on how to move forward seems to lurch from useless to clueless.

Bob MacDougall, Oxhill, Kippen, Stirlingshire

No sign of action

Fergus Ewing says “no more excuses” over the dualling plan for the A9 (your report, 31 May). To start with, surely it would be sensible and economical to install speed signs. Surprisingly, at present there isn’t one, even on the average speed sections, on the A9 between Perth and Inverness, only ones for commercial vehicles indicating 50mph.

Alan Macmillan, Balerno, Edinburgh

Bottled wisdom?

I totally agree with Allan Sutherland when he says your average litter lout is not going to hunt out a recycling point simply to get his 20p back (Letters, 31 May). The people who normally throw bottles at their feet, or out of the car window, will continue to do so regardless.

The main impact of the deposit return scheme will be to make it more difficult for the majority of ordinary people, who will now have to go and look for these recycling points rather than put the bottles in the bin outside their house.

However, the thought has occurred to me that perhaps this has nothing to do with reducing litter at all. If comfortable, middle class people were to forego their recycling money, and allow local children to collect the bottles and return them, like we used to do in days of yore, it could have a massive impact in reducing levels of child poverty in Scotland.

So, if recycling points could be made available locally around all poorer housing schemes, just encourage people to throw their bottles out in to the street, and we can redistribute wealth in a meaningful and more local manner. In a properly joined-up process, of course, local authorities would also reduce their council tax if they were no longer picking up. Small children would get more exercise, and perhaps learn a bit about enterprise too. What’s not to like?

Perhaps ScotGov should just come at this problem from another angle, and public support for it might increase.

Victor Clements, Aberfeldy, Perthshire

Hollow promises

Marjorie Ellis Thompson is right that Gordon Brown’s latest contribution on the constitution is a bit “weird” (Letters, 31 May). It is also confused and unconvincing because he ignores support for independence, recently polled at 53 per cent. Brown’s own polling found that 52 per cent of Scots did not have “a common bond” with English people. Most people might see a connection between the two results, but not Brown.

Instead, he draws attention to the very low feelings of a common bond with Londoners and concludes that this “more accurately” means Scots are dissatisfied with the over-concentration of power in London, which can only be the answer if he had asked a different question. That twist is followed by a very big reach – that feeling a stronger bond with Geordies, etc, more so than with Londoners, demonstrates that we all share the same values. These, he tells us, are “solidarity, cooperation and sharing”, apparently because a “vast majority” believe in supporting the NHS, tackling the cost-of-living crisis and so on.

P eople ticking these boxes when asked – who doesn’t? – is not evidence they share Brown’s claimed values. Nor is it evidence that Scots don’t feel strongly about independence. Least of all is there evidence of widespread support in England for constitutional changes as set down by Brown.

Nevertheless, at this weekend’s conference we misguided Scots will be told what we really feel and think by Brown and four other peripheral Labour figures, none of whom will be in Starmer’s government should he win the election. We will be told that Starmer can be trusted to enact radical reforms, despite the fact he is yet to say or do anything which might in the slightest upset the right-wing press. We’ll hear a lot about power being shared and devolved but not that Westminster retains sovereignty under Brown’s plans and could later dismantle whatever little Starmer dares to do.

“Now there is another route to change” declares Brown – a false claim for another pile of hollow promises.

Robert Farquharson, Edinburgh

Big difference

I am always interested to read Gordon Brown’s thoughts on reforms that could be made government and democracy in the UK and how that affects Scotland (30 May).

His recent pronouncements, though, seem to miss an important political difference between Scottish political attitudes and those of the English, and that is Brexit. Scots voted strongly to remain in the EU while England didn’t.

There were two other things in his piece of note. Regarding abolition of the House of Lords – if only he’d been in a position of power to do something about that before...oh wait! He also says that he wants to make a new Britain that is “less corrupt”. What does “less corrupt” mean? Just a “little corrupt” or “mildly corrupt”? My interest in what Gordon Brown has to say about anything way well be waning.

Rob Munn, Edinburgh

Heart of darkness

MSP Lorna Slater, the green bottle girl, is at it again. It must be really comforting to know that when you get things wrong (again) you can always blame someone else. She and the SNP have made a hash of the DRS scheme, one more failure in a whirlpool of debris, and as usual blame it on Westminster.

It must be clear to even the most ardent of indy supporters that they've stretched this buck passing practice to breaking point and are about to disappear into that circularity black hole where nothing can escape… especially light. There is no light in the SNP/Green government, just murky small- minded people dreaming up little schemes to give them a chance to stamp their little feet in childish anger.

Stan Hogarth, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

Sticky wicket

RyanAir's row with the Balearic Islands for surcharging passengers £39 to bring on board the local ensaïmada confectionaries isn't a surprise.When it comes to poor customer service, RyanAir always did take the cake.

Mark Boyle, Johnstone, Renfrewshire

Sorry, Nicola

Learning to drive. Fostering children. Writing a novel, for goodness' sake! If only our former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had been such a profound multi-tasker while in office, what successes might there have been for Scotland? We should feel dismayed at the loss of such incredible potential. I feel guilty on a personal level for not being sufficiently supportive. Mea culpa.

Paul Marsden, Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway

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