Seven-year wait for NHS treatment? How SNP are leading Scotland into dystopian future

And so it has come to this. The NHS crisis is now so deep that opposition politicians are pleading with the Scottish Government to ensure that, by Christmas, no one in Scotland will have been waiting more than two years for treatment. Two years!

Such is the disarray in the health service that an utterly unreasonable length of time for anyone in pain or distress to have to wait has now become a target for our government to attempt to hit.

Of course, the SNP has promised to do this before. Waits of more than two years were supposed to have ended in 2022. Of course, that pledge was not met. Earlier this year, 7,146 patients had been waiting longer than two years for treatment on an in-patient or day-case basis, with 1,324 waiting more than three years.

The NHS crisis is now so dire that ensuring no one waits more than two years for treatment would be an achievement (Picture: Cate Gillon) | Getty Images

Twelve Fails of Christmas

That’s not even the worst of it. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar told the Scottish Parliament that a response to a freedom of information request by his party had revealed waits of seven years for urology treatment, six years for general surgery and five years for ophthalmology, gynaecology and orthopaedics.

It sounds like the Twelve Days of Christmas is being reworked for a cruel and bleak dystopia that is either unable or unwilling to look after its sick and injured properly. Former Conservative Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt will need to update her own Twelve SNP Fails of Christmas.

No answer

Asked by Sarwar whether he would guarantee that two-year waits would be over by Christmas, John Swinney did not directly answer the question. Of course not, why would he? The problems were “an accumulation of the impact of the delay to treatment because of the pandemic”, he explained, adding that the situation was getting better.

With those words, the First Minister sought to lull the nation back to sleep until the next set of shocking figures reveals the situation has become even worse and the same old excuses are trotted out yet again.

We cannot allow this dismal decline to continue. If the NHS is to be saved, serious reforms need to be actioned now. For, one day, our lives may depend on it.