MONITORING of the country’s health boards must improve to combat a range of performance “failings”, MSPs have told the Scottish Government.
In an official letter to Health Secretary Jeane Freeman, the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party Health and Sport Committee says oversight of NHS boards must be tightened up.
Committee convener Lewis Macdonald said “common themes” had emerged during the panel’s evidence sessions with each of Scotland’s health boards.
And the north-east MSP detailed six areas where repeated underperformance was reported. These include spending on agency staff, the recruitment of personnel, waiting times, delayed discharges, financial performance and the leadership of integrated joint boards.
Three boards in particular – Ayrshire and Arran, Highland, and Borders – were singled out for their financial performance. Each of these required extra funding from ministers in recent years.
The number of delayed discharges has increased by 6% over the past year, according to the committee, and Macdonald said this must be treated as an “utmost priority”.
He stated: “We want to see better monitoring of NHS board performance, identifying issues early and addressing those issues.
“All of our NHS boards face financial pressures but we know that several of them are repeatedly missing financial targets and needing to receive financial aid from the Scottish Government to provide services.
“Delayed discharge numbers continue to rise and this is clearly a concerning trend which needs to be tackled immediately.
“Patient waiting times, particularly around cancer treatment and access to mental health services, are also rising and we want to know the reasons for this.”
READ MORE: Spike in children's hospital infections around time of Milly Main's death
Currently, six NHS boards in Scotland are subject to extra scrutiny from the Scottish Government.
Holyrood uses a sliding scale to determine the level of oversight in health boards, with one being the lowest and five the highest.
Four NHS boards are currently at level four – Highland, Tayside, Borders, and most recently Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which was escalated last week in response to a scandal over the death of 10-year-old recovering cancer patient Milly Main, which has been linked to an infection caused by contaminated water.
Yesterday Labour’s Anas Sarwar said information from whistleblowers showed board bosses had been warned about infection risks in the water supply at the flagship Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) when it opened in 2015, and again in 2017, the year of Milly’s death.
Calling this “unforgivable”, he said: “Warnings were ignored and appropriate action was not taken. It led to the death of a child.
“If this happened in the private sector there wouldn’t be a public inquiry, there would be a criminal investigation.”
Freeman has now named Lord Brodie as the chairman of a forthcoming public inquiry into issues at the QEUH and the delayed Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh, which was stopped from opening over ventilation issues causing infection concerns.
At First Minister’s Questions, Nicola Sturgeon said ministers are seeking the answers “that Milly’s parents and the parents of any children who have been treated at the Queen Elizabeth want and deserve”.
She said: “The reason we have ordered the public inquiry is to make sure that there is complete transparency and, if necessary, complete accountability around these issues.”
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