THE confusion around the Scottish Government’s plans for four specialist trauma care centres is a guddle entirely of ministers’ making.
After a suggestion that the plans were being scaled down, and hints that the project was to be delayed, Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that the network of specialist hubs is running at least three years behind schedule.
When then health secretary Alex Neil announced the plan in 2014, he said the centres in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee would be ready by 2016. It should be said at the outset that the idea is the right one and the strategy seemed sound. Centralisation, in the interests of creating centres of excellence, can be an effective way for the NHS to manage increasing demand and cost pressures.
The hubs will allow victims of major trauma incidents involving road accidents or head injuries to have access to better care. The Government says they could save up to 40 lives a year. By bringing together not just surgeons but also other medical professionals such as physiotherapists, access to high quality rehabilitation for patients should be significantly improved too.
Around 6,000 Scots suffer serious injury a year, with around 1,000 defined as major trauma. For every fatality as a result of major trauma, two people suffer life-changing injuries. Providing easier, faster access to leading specialists could in many cases be vital and life-saving for patients.
Local hospitals would continue to care for people with less serious injuries, particularly where patients are unable to reach a major trauma unit within a reasonable time period.
That, at least, was the plan. But, of late, it appears to have been unravelling. Last February, Health Secretary Shona Robison appeared to backtrack on the plans, confirming they were being looked at again.
Angry clinicians in Aberdeen said they had been told the four hubs might be replaced by just two, in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Also, it was reported last May that Aberdeen’s role as a hub had been confirmed before the Scottish Government received research into whether it was an appropriate location.
Regardless of the size of the network (the First Minister says all four locations will go ahead) we now know it will be another three years before it is up and running.
Opponents are rightly asking what happens to the 1,200 people a year who would have been treated in these hubs and the 40 people a year who were going to be saved when the network was in place. Does a three-year delay mean 120 lives could be lost needlessly?
The Scottish Government does not come out of this well. The impression given is of timescales being set without due thought and pledges being made before the necessary research and negotiations had taken place. It is all very well for Ms Sturgeon to talk about the scale and complexity of the task, but this should have been apparent from the outset.
An extra £5 million in funding to speed up developments cannot disguise the fact that this seems a failure of planning in a crucial area of health care.
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