Leeching on NHS

The Chairman of the BMA in Scotland has highlighted the excessive demands placed on NHS staff. Opposition politicians blame cuts to criticise the running of the service by the government in power.

Clearly the NHS needs restructuring and reform, and at last the SNP will start this next year. Let’s hope they don’t just complain about how much money they get from Westminster, because since 1965 UK GDP had trebled in real terms from £470 billion to £1500bn, and spending on the NHS has doubled from 4 per cent of GDP to 8 per cent, so arguably resources have grown sixfold without satisfying demand. So what has changed?

One factor that politicians never mention is the excessive demands we, the consumer, make due to lifestyle and attitudes.

Diabetes is an example. In 1965 there were around 50,000 people with Type 2 diabetes in Scotland. There are 250,000 today. It is caused by obesity, can be avoided or cured by weight loss and the disease and its associated symptoms and implications cost around £1bn out of NHS Scotland’s £13bn budget.

And no wonder our ambulance service is creaking if, as a recent report highlighted, weekday staffing has to be adjusted to cater for the 42 per cent of weekend ambulance callouts for drunks with selfinflicted emergencies.

And what chance do our doctors have if, for example, only 1.3 million out of 2.1m Scots invited to take the simple home bowel cancer screening test take up the offer, meaning 4,000 out of a possible 7,000 bowel cancers are discovered and treated early, successfully and at less cost.

Our responsibility as consumers of healthcare needs to be highlighted, and there needs to be cross-party support for education, screening, food marketing and manufacture legislation. This should be reinforced by incentives such as paying for weight loss and consequences such as delayed non-life threatening operations. Both these initiatives are happening in England.

There are huge gains to be made and it is time we started calling a spade a spade. Politicians are too scared that they will offend the voters, but they will offend those of us who pay our taxes and look after ourselves even more.

ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven I read with great interest the conflicting comments about the state of the Health Service in Scotland. Those working in it are warning of lessened services and reduced numbers of quality staff being attracted to work within the NHS. The Government, on the other hand, appears to be telling us not to panic, all will be fine. Both cannot be correct. Oh to have the truth accepted, presented without dogma and clearly reported.

DAVID GERRARD Spylaw Park, Edinburgh