Patients not getting right care in right place at right time, says Swinney
Patients not getting right care in right place at right time, says Swinney
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Patients in Scotland are not getting “the right care in the right place at the right time”, John Swinney has said. The First Minister laid out a plan to improve Scotland’s ailing health service in a speech in Edinburgh on Monday, where he said waiting times for treatment were a “canary in the coal mine”.
Scotland has struggled with high waiting times in recent years, exacerbated by the pandemic, including in A&E, outpatient procedures and other hospital treatment – where hundreds of thousands are languishing on waiting lists. The First Minister announced plans to provide 150,000 more appointments and procedures, as well as a £10.5 million increase in funding for GPs as well as a pledge to give more funding to primary care in the future, and pledging the creation of “frailty teams” to be at every A&E in the country to help those who could “bypass” emergency departments and free up capacity.
In his speech, the First Minister said: “The first and most important thing on many people’s minds is how long it can take to access services: delays in access with waiting times too long, and delays in discharge because appropriate at-home or in-community care is not available.
“The two, of course, are fundamentally connected. “Last year, I referred to delayed discharge as the canary in the coal mine of our National Health Service – I think of waiting times in much the same way. “Both of these delays tell us that the flow of people through the health system is not happening as it should.
