What’s happening to our NHS?

What happens if you break the law and you are caught? You would expect to pay a fixed penalty fine or even end up in court. But what if it is Scottish Government Ministers? Would you expect them to be held to account by the law? Well, the SNP Government introduced a law in 2012 which gave patients a legal guarantee (that is written into law), that they wouldn’t wait any longer than 12 weeks from treatment being agreed until the start of treatment. Since then, the law has been broken 28,000 times. That’s right twenty eight thousand. So what has happened to those who broke the law? Absolutely nothing. So what is the point of passing laws if they are meaningless and can be broken 28,000 times? It makes a mockery of our legal system and leaves the politicians open to the accusation of cynical and insincere headline grabbing. And on the subject of health, why are we still seeing problems at A&E at the RAH? Last year I saw at first hand patients waiting on trolleys in the corridor for up to 18 hours. The Scottish Government put in a crisis team to sort things out. So why one year later are we still seeing one patient in four having to wait more than four hours at A&E? It’s not the fault of staff who are run off their feet. Last week patients were being turned away from the RAH because there were no beds. And now we find that the Health Board is having to make £60 million of cuts. Nicola Sturgeon has been in charge of the Health Service for almost 9 years. The key decisions have been made by her and it’s time she stepped in to give Renfrewshire patients and staff a better deal. We all need our Health Service and we can’t afford to let standards slip.