As NHS crisis deepens, SNP shows no sign of finding a cure – Scotsman comment

College of Paramedics makes an urgent appeal for help to Humza Yousaf over delays in handing over patients from ambulances to hospitals

Patient safety is being compromised as ambulances are forced to queue for hours outside hospitals (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

The National Health Service is in the grip of a deadly disease and government ministers seem incapable of finding a cure. Instead, they flap about helplessly, like doctors in the days before modern medicine, spewing out false reassurances and fake hope as their patient's steady deterioration continues.

The latest symptom of many comes in the form of Scottish Ambulance Service figures showing crews were forced to queue outside hospitals for hours on end in the first week of January. For example, ten per cent of ambulances waited more than four hours and 25 minutes outside University Hospital Crosshouse in Kilmarnock and there were similar stories at University Hospital Wishaw, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

The College of Paramedics spelled out the consequences of such delays, saying it put patients’ at risk. And, of course, if an ambulance is forced to sit outside a hospital, it cannot respond to other emergency calls. “When ambulances are delayed in attending, understandably, members of the public call 999 again when something gets worse with the patient’s condition, or when the ambulance does not arrive in the timeframe they expected – it is these ‘call backs’ which result in increased numbers of 999 calls and therefore challenges in answering them,” a spokesperson said.

The College is calling on Humza Yousaf and the Scottish Government to “urgently address issues within [hospital] emergency departments where every day the valuable and precious capacity of paramedics is lost when waiting to hand over patients”.

‘Bed blocking’ – usually by people who are well enough to go home but who need social care that is not available – appears to be a major factor in the delays, with overflowing wards unable to accept patients from A&E, which leads to patients waiting in ambulances outside. The queue is now so long that it stretches all the way to the scenes of accidents, heart attacks and other life-threatening emergencies.

The situation requires drastic, urgent and effective action. Instead, what we are likely to get is the SNP’s patented cure-all for its political ills: blame Westminster.