Scotland did not vote for Brexit but we suffer as part of the Union.

The Nuffield Trust reported that last winter hospital trusts in England were asked to work with local partners to cut delayed discharges by half by the end of January. However, the situation has actually got worse since.

In Labour-run Wales, the Senedd’s Health and Social Care Committee Report in June found that a workforce crisis in the social care sector is resulting in patients staying in hospital for days, or even weeks, longer than necessary.

Staffing problems in hospitals are due to Covid and post-Brexit recruitment issues, says reader. Photo: Peter Byrne/PA Wire

Also, the report acknowledged that it was difficult to gauge the full extent of the problem as, unlike in Scotland, the Welsh Government suspended reporting requirements on "delayed transfers of care” at the start of the pandemic but there are more than 1,000 people in Welsh hospital beds when they could have been discharged.

I am not sure if Pamela Nash is the best recruiting sergeant for Scotland in Union as, when a Labour MP she, along with Ian Murray and Anas Sarwar, voted with the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition government for £30 billion worth of cuts on January 13, 2015 which removed £2,550 million from the Scottish government’s budget.

Fraser Grant, Edinburgh

Inquiry insights

The recently published Roundtable Report from The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry contains startling insights into the mindset of abusers within a religious setting.

It points at their “capacity for self-delusion, engaging in thinking that was illogical”.

The personal testimony of an abusing priest explains: “I handed the problem over to God. It doesn’t fit with how I am, but this is the way you made me. It’s up to you to sort it out. It didn’t outweigh the good I was doing.”

This unscientific and irrational thinking would surely be identified and corrected in any other setting, but if we are politely to tiptoe around it when it is religiously based we cannot be surprised when this privilege allows for the blurring of similar lines of moral certainty.

Neil Barber, Edinburgh Secular Society

God ‘weaponised’ by priests to silence abused children, inquiry report finds

Taxing problem

It is now estimated that it will cost over £250 million to set up the IT system alone for the Scottish Government to pay out benefits to over 1 million people living in Scotland eligible for those benefits.

This highlights the folly of duplicating IT systems in Scotland that are already up and running in the rest of the UK whilst Scotland will now pay a much higher rate of tax per person, compliments of the Scottish taxpayer.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Bucksburn, Aberdeen

Finger on the pulse

How interesting that the Scottish Greens are to debate cutting links with the Greens down south, over transphobia fears.

This will be a big help with the climate problem and the cost of living crisis. They really have their finger on the pulse of the nation!

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

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Scotland on Sunday readers' letters: All four home nations facing patient discharge concerns

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