We must face up to dire prognosis for our NHS in crisis

A “more challenging year for all health boards” than “ever previously experienced”. That is the prognosis for 2024-25, according to NHS Grampian’s interim chief executive, Adam Coldwells. The strain on already struggling NHS employees and services since the Covid pandemic has only worsened. Staff shortages, limited GP appointments, excessively long waiting times, ambulance delays, cancelled surgeries: these are the consequences of pushing a broken healthcare system to its limits, directly affecting people living in the north and north-east.

The idea that the dire situation will deteriorate further over the next 12 months is truly terrifying. Yet, as The P&J reported earlier this week, NHS Grampian is preparing to make savings of £77 million during the next year – the equivalent, as Mr Coldwells put it, of “£210,000 a day every single day for 365 days”.

Also highlighted this week was the risk that minor injury units in three Aberdeenshire towns could stop providing out-of-hours care, increasing A&E pressure. For both health service staff and patients, it increasingly feels as though the walls are closing in, with no relief on the horizon, only more budget cuts.

Late last month, Humza Yousaf shared his displeasure at long ambulance waits outside Aberdeen Royal Infirmary during First Minister’s Questions, deeming the situation “simply not acceptable”. The first minister is correct, of course. Nonetheless, this scathing condemnation alone only adds insult to injury for paramedics and hospital workers already doing everything they can with extremely limited resources. Mr Yousaf is the leader of a country in crisis, particularly when it comes to healthcare, not a manager reprimanding inefficient employees.

What can the Scottish Government do to help in the short-term? And, long-term, what is it doing to provide light at the end of the tunnel? On Tuesday, P&J columnist Chris Deerin wrote of a recent conversation with Highland GP and chairman of the British Medical Association Scotland Iain Kennedy, during which Dr Kennedy said: “There is no vision, no strategy, no plan for NHS Scotland.” It is not an easy warning to swallow by any means, but it is a crucially important one that Holyrood ignores at its peril.

Across this country, we are all fiercely proud and protective of the NHS, but we must face up to the frightening state it is currently in. Well-looked-after patients require well-looked-after staff, and all of that requires investment, not cuts. It might be difficult for the average person to visualise what a £77m budget slash actually looks like – but every single one of us knows it isn’t good.