NHS24 staff must be under huge pressure to field the thousands of extra calls resulting from A&E services being under siege and GPs surgeries not yet running at full capacity.
But almost 170,000 unanswered calls in three months is a shocking figure.
How many patients desperately in need of advice have gone without help? How many have suffered in agony because no one answered?
We may never know the answers.
But it is obvious that NHS24 was woefully unprepared for the avalanche of calls it faced as other health services were crippled by coronavirus.
We have already seen lengthy queues at accident and emergency departments where a lack of beds has led to a crisis at hospital front doors.
The A&E crisis spilled over into the ambulance service, with vehicles queued for hours at the front doors of hospitals while desperately ill people worsened or died waiting for paramedics to arrive.
And with GPs not able to see as many patients face to face, people only had one other choice – the NHS24 phoneline.
Health Secretary Humza Yousaf and health boards have been telling people not to turn up at A&E unless it is a life or death emergency.
Instead, they have instructed people to call NHS 24.
Many will have called not realising their condition was an actual emergency. That some of these desperately ill patients’ calls went unanswered is disgraceful.
The Scottish Government simply never put in the resources to match the massive demand they must surely have expected.
However many call handlers were on duty, it was obviously not nearly enough.
As always, NHS workers have performed heroics during the Covid crisis and NHS24 staff deserve great credit for doing their best in very trying circumstances.
But NHS bosses need to explain why so many calls went unanswered – and why more staff weren’t put in place to deal with the massive demand.
Still work to do
When the Scottish Parliament was opened in 1999, there was huge expectation it could lead to a more fair and equal society.
Devolution has undoubtedly achieved some significant successes since.
But when it comes to inequality, there remains a lot to do.
Official figures show the richest 10 per cent of people living in Scotland are now more than 200 times wealthier than the poorest 10 per cent.
They also show that one in three Scots fear they would be unable to stay above the poverty line if they lost their job as they have little or no savings.
Inequality is an issue the Scottish Government is working hard to tackle.
But these figures are a reminder that an equal and fairer Scotland remains a work in progress.
