SCOTLAND'S Health Secretary Neil Gray has said he accepts that some hospitals in Scotland are under pressure, but rejects the BMA Scotland’s description of the NHS as being in a state of “perma-crisis”.
Gray said in an interview on the BBC’s The Sunday Show that some of the pressures within the NHS are currently being driven by peaks in winter demand, and rejected comments made by the chairman of the BMA’s Scotland Council.
Dr Ian Kennedy recently called for “radical reform” in the NHS, adding: " “I’m expecting things to get much worse, but it’s all predictable, this was always coming."
Gray said he is looking to work with health boards and health and social care partnerships to ensure the flow of people passing through hospital and then out into the community is working well.
It comes after a critical incident was declared at NHS Grampian earlier this month, which saw patients being diverted away from over-capacity hospitals.
Gray added: “I think I can understand for those patients, or indeed those staff that are waiting too long or that are feeling under pressure, that that could be a description or a feeling that they will have, but the majority of people experiencing and using our health service receive a good service in good time with incredibly dedicated, professional, well trained, compassionate staff.”
He also said it is worrying that the number of students accepted onto nursing courses this year is well below target.
Figures published by applications body Ucas this week showed that 3530 students were accepted onto Scottish university courses in the field this year.
This was more than 1000 below the Scottish Government target of 4536 places for nursing this year.
It comes after a healthcare watchdog raised concerns about children being treated in an adult ward at the largest hospital in the Western Isles due to a shortage of trained nurses.
Healthcare Improvement Scotland said NHS Western Isles gave conflicted information on numbers of staff trained in paediatric support, and reported there were times when children were left unaccompanied.
Gray was asked how challenges within the NHS can be addressed if there are not enough staff, and was questioned about how more people can be persuaded into nursing.
He said: “This is the focus of the nursing and midwifery task force, which has just concluded its first phase of work and will be reporting early in the new year around its recommendations on attracting and retaining nurses and midwives.
“It’s a worry for me that those courses that are available and the support that’s available for people to come through those courses is not being taken up to the levels that we want them to be.
“Some of it comes down to making sure that it is an attractive profession to work in, and obviously that’s why I want to make sure we get the balance right around the narrative of the health service, where I am celebrating the successes of it, as well as recognizing it’s challenging.”
He added: “Alongside the structural or indeed the service delivery reforms and improvements that we need to make we need to make it easier for staff to be able to do their jobs, to make it easier for them.
“That makes it more attractive, I recognise that, and part of the recommendations that will be coming through the nursing and midwifery task force is about supporting staff better.
“It’s about recognising that we need to make sure that the pressure is reduced.”
