£227m in compensation payouts shows price of NHS staff set up to fail by SNP

Frontline NHS staff have been left ‘dangerously overstretched’ and, therefore, ‘more prone to making mistakes’, warn the Conservatives

As everyone knows, we all make mistakes. So the National Health Service will always have to pay compensation to those whose treatment has failed to meet the required standards, not least because the patients affected by medical errors or negligence may need money to help them live with the consequences.

However, news that Scotland’s health boards have paid out the staggering sum of £227 million in compensation over the last five years is a reminder of how expensive these mistakes can be. Between 2019-20 and 2023-24, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde alone paid out an average of nearly £10m a year. That’s an awful lot of money that could otherwise have been used to employ nurses and doctors, buy new technology and so on.

Dr Sandesh Gulhane, the Scottish Conservatives’ Shadow Health Secretary said that mistakes often had “catastrophic consequences for the patients involved”. However, he surely spoke for many when he put the blame on Scottish Government ministers, rather than hard-pressed NHS staff.

The NHS is an institution that has served Scotland and the UK exceptionally well but which has been in decline for years (Picture: Christopher Furlong) | Getty Images

State of decline

“Dire workforce planning by successive nationalist health secretaries has left frontline NHS staff dangerously overstretched and more prone to making mistakes,” Gulhane said. This was creating a “vicious circle” with payouts reducing the resources available to “already cash-strapped health boards”, leading to more pressure on staff and more mistakes.

The NHS has been in a state of decline for years and it must be extremely hard for the most dedicated health staff to continue trying to do a good job, while feeling under pressure to work faster than is safe because of the unacceptably long waiting lists for treatment.

The health service is a wonderful institution that has served Scotland and the UK exceptionally well since it was founded in 1948. But patients voting with their feet by going private and shockingly low morale among staff are signs of just how much trouble it is now in.

Saving a life provides a level of job satisfaction that few of us will ever know. NHS staff being set up to fail – over matters of life and death – is a situation that none of us should tolerate.