IN your editorial on the NHS ("Pledge on treatment illusory" , The Herald, May 27), for me, the key sentence is: "Our politicians should make strong and transparent pledges and be held to account for them.
If they should come up short, they should explain why."
There is no doubt that shorter waits for first out-patient appointments and then a guaranteed time limit to any planned investigation and treatment which follows from that have been a major step forward in the NHS north and south of the Border. There is a need for transparency when waits increase; health boards can be rather coy about that, even with GPs who have to represent the situation to their patients as they refer them.
The public must now be fully aware that while efficiencies can continue to make some difference, budgets for health services are finite and health inflation well above inflation in other sectors of the economy.
It is primary care and general practice which now needs what investment is available, not more money for further surgery at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital. It is general practice which before and since the statutory instrument of 2012 has absorbed an increasing flow of work from secondary care. That flow is in favour of the Scottish Government's 2020 Vision of more care at or nearer to patients' homes which GPs support.
That comes at a price and one current consequence is the reduction in recruitment to GP training. Young doctors do not see general practice as an attractive proposition. Overworked practitioners and teams need that trend to reverse and soon. A good beginning would be for the Cabinet Secretary for Health to explain that both primary and secondary care are paid for from the same pot. It is time primary care had first call on that, not secondary care targets enshrined in pointless statutory instruments.
Philip Gaskell,
General practitioner,
Allan Park Medical Practice,
19 Allan Park, Stirling.
WITH 4,499 people missing out on the targeted waiting time for treatment in Scottish hospitals ("NHS breaking waiting times law", The Herald, May 27), and reports of scenes of chaos at the new South Glasgow University Hospital, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Scottish Government is guilty of negligence in the management of the National; Health Service in Scotland.
Yet again, we bear witness to the harsh reality of an SNP executive which has devoted its entire attention and effort to its core objective of separation over the governance of day-to-day life in Scotland.
How hollow do the "NHYes" slogans start to sound when the administration fails miserably to reach targets it enshrined in legislation? How much longer will the SNP continue to pull the wool over the electorate's eyes by posturing that they arecapable and willing to genuinely put the people of Scotland first?
Scottish opposition parties have one year before the next Holyrood elections to get their act together and expose the nationalists for their shortcomings. For the sake of everyone in Scotland, we must hope that they can do so.
Derek Miller,
Westbank, West Balgrochan Road, Torrance.
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