A constituent recently contacted me for assistance with his ophthalmology appointment following a cataract diagnosis. Admittedly not life threatening, but anything affecting your sight will obviously be very alarming.
NHS Lothian claims most patients will start treatment within 18 weeks of their GP referral, so he expected a wait of around four months, and three weeks after his optician’s referral to specialists, a letter arrived to say he was on the waiting list.
There the good news ended because his treatment would be in 90 weeks. Incredulous, he checked again three weeks later, and the list had grown to 106 weeks, a staggering four months’ increase in just 21 days.
Being inquisitive, he checked out waiting times elsewhere and discovered what looks like an astonishing difference; Harrogate NHS Foundation, 9-13 weeks, Leeds Teaching hospitals 11-13 weeks, East Cheshire NHS Trust 15-18 weeks, and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust,14-15 weeks.
Maybe, like NHS Lothian, the reality is different, but it is disgraceful for anyone to be forced to wait over two years for something relatively routine, but essential, like cataract treatment.
A new approach to list reduction is to write to patients to ask if they would like to be removed, perhaps because they had been treated privately, undergone a miraculous improvement, or just given up and learned to live with pain. Or maybe the letter is opened by a relative after their death. One way or another, a failure to reply means the list is cut by one.
Perhaps if health secretary Neil Gray was an Edinburgh MSP things might be different, because although he says he took no part in the decision, the only major health infrastructure project in Scotland to escape his government’s recent spending freeze is the replacement for Monklands General Hospital in his Airdrie & Shotts constituency. Funny that.
It’s true that £2 million was recently spent on the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion, but that was to fix leaking pipes and asbestos issues in an outdated building. Without these repairs, the wait time for cataract treatment would have been even longer.
I have some sympathy with NHS Lothian’s officials as they try to deal with an expanding population, buildings which are falling apart, budgets under relentless pressure, and a government in public denial about the scale of the crisis.
A recent NHSL briefing was depressing. Over 700 people have been waiting over a year for a hip or knee replacement, and for critical illnesses there is a “risk of rapidly deteriorating estate and failure impacting operational planning and performance” at the at the Western General. Replacing the Edinburgh Cancer Centre and the Regional Infectious Diseases centre at the Western are “urgent.”
The Scottish Government only granted NHS Lothian less than a quarter of the funds it requested to improve bowel cancer diagnostic services. Endoscopy waiting lists are lengthening, and the litany of failures went on and on.
This week, Neil Gray advised people to pay for a flu vaccine if they can afford to, which they should, but at the same time his government insists on handing out over-the-counter remedies like paracetamol and ibuprofen free on prescription.
The NHS can’t go on like this, but the SNP seems content to lurch from one crisis to another, with a sticking plaster approach to a service bleeding dry when what’s needed is a revolution. And honesty.
