I saw Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's new First Minister, a lot when she was the country's Health Secretary.

She made herself accessible from the start.

Health boards had to hold their annual reviews in public for the first time and she spent her summer travelling the country taking questions from patients and staff.

In Glasgow, the packed auditorium became heated as time for the Q&A ran short. Ms Sturgeon let the meeting run on, calmly dealing with frustrated patients without fobbing them off. When she was left, she was probably knackered, but she stood out as different from the more cautious, remote, politicians who had gone before.

When the flu pandemic arrived in Scotland, her regular media briefings allowed information to be released into the public domain without confusion or panic.

I am not saying her reign in the health brief from 2007 to 2012 was flawless. She moved portfolio at the height of the NHS Lothian waiting list manipulation saga - a scandal more complex than the current Scottish Government would have us believe.

During her last months in office there were also signs tighter health budgets, rising expenses and demand were beginning to take their toll. The College Of Emergency Medicine wrote to her warning most A&E departments in the country were regularly unsafe.

Some said Ms Sturgeon got out of health at the right time, but, to be fair, the A&E whistle-blowers have always said her response and that of successor Alex Neil was to listen, meet regularly and provide support.

Nevertheless, as The Herald's investigation into summer hospital capacity revealed on Monday, the Scottish health service remains under strain. This is not to say most patients are treated badly - that has never been the claim of our NHS: Time For Action campaign. Most patients praise the health service.

The trouble is, politicians can hide behind this message and ignore the need for more urgent, decisive planning now to ensure health and social care services will be able to look after the growing elderly population to a high standard in future.

The Audit Scotland report published last month made it plain health boards are already struggling to cope and the Government's vision of a Scotland, where the frail are so well looked after at home they do not need to visit hospital so often, is on very shaky ground. There has been a lot of leaving it up to councils and health boards to deliver this ideal - which is vital if we do not want patients on trolleys for hours because wards are full.

It is time for the Scottish Government to take responsibility for making this happen - and I do not just mean by merging health and council social care service management, as it is doing next April.

How good is Scotland at preventing the frail from needing hospital treatment? How much better does it need to be if hospitals are to cope 10 years from now? Is it realistic to deliver that, or do our hospitals need to expand as well?

Political leaders will be judged in future on how they manage the NHS today and, no matter who is Health Secretary, that means Ms Sturgeon.