MSPs on Holyrood's health committee are being urged to investigate the state of the country's A&E departments in the wake of The Herald's revelations that almost all were deemed unsafe because of growing pressure on the NHS.

From the point of view of patients, such an inquiry would not come a moment too soon. During last winter's A&E crisis hundreds found themselves waiting more than 12 hours for treatment, making a mockery of the Scottish Government's target to see 98% of patients within four hours. The health service recorded its worst figures since monitoring began in 2007.

Unfortunately that doesn't mean it will automatically feature in the committee's work programme when Parliament returns for business in September.

There are strong reasons why MSPs on all sides should support the move, proposed yesterday by Labour's new health spokesman Neil Findlay. But before they do, they will have to overcome a deep-rooted political instinct – avoid doing anything which might prise the lid off a can of worms.

You don't have to be too long in the tooth to remember quite how squirming a can of worms NHS reform is for MSPs.

In 2004 the then-Labour/LibDem administration backed wide-ranging plans to centralise services. More than 20 hospitals were to be affected to some degree or another as disciplines were concentrated in bigger specialist units. The "modernisation" plans were designed to address problems of capacity in the NHS – the same concern as today – caused then by restrictions on junior doctors' working hours, among other things.

The rationale was that care would improve because it was better for patients to travel further for more expert treatment than attend a local unit with inevitably more limited experience. The idea, of course, went down like a lead balloon.

Malcolm Chisholm, the first Health Minister to wrestle with the problem, was reshuffled before the paint was dry on the protesters' placards and Andy Kerr, his successor, met with no more success in selling a programme of hospital downgrades and closures.

Saving the threatened A&E departments at Ayr and Monklands became a key issues in the 2007 Scottish election which Labour lost narrowly to the SNP. The incoming Health Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, immediately blocked the closures in a move the Nationalists still hail as one of the big achievement of their first term in power.

Since then some in Labour have harboured a deep resentment over the failed reforms. They believe the SNP in Government has failed to make tough strategic changes to the NHS and see last winter's crisis in terms of chickens coming home to roost. From their point of view, a Holyrood inquiry might help make that case for them.

But SNP MSPs on the committee – who thanks to their majority will ultimately decide whether an inquiry takes place – should also feel they have plenty to gain. Reminding us they saved A&E departments while Labour tied themselves in knots would do no harm at all.

A bold prediction, then: the health committee will look into A&E provision. Can of worms or not.