Humza Yousaf has been described as the ‘continuity candidate’ in the SNP leadership race. Yousaf remains the bookies’ favourite and has managed to avoided the media storm that his rival Kate Forbes has faced following her comments about gay marriage. But Yousaf’s own record in politics deserves some scrutiny. So how has the Scottish health secretary fared in his current role?
This morning, Audit Scotland released a damning report that laid bare the full extent of Humza Yousaf’s health service crisis. It urged the Scottish government to be ‘fully transparent’ about ‘what progress is or is not being achieved’, and revealed that the health service is still nowhere close to meeting NHS Recovery Plan targets.
Only months ago, Humza Yousaf was facing calls to resign as the crisis facing Scotland’s NHS worsened dramatically over the winter. It had been revealed that over 42,000 patients had been forced to wait over 12 hours to access A&E care between January and October 2022. Things got so bad that at the turn of the year, Dr Iain Kennedy, chair of BMA Scotland, announced: ‘There is no way that the NHS in Scotland can survive. In fact, many of my members are telling me that the NHS in Scotland has died already.’
These five graphs reveal Yousaf’s failings as he has presided over the Scottish health service:
A&E waiting times
Scotland’s NHS aims to see 95 per cent of A&E arrivals within four hours of their coming to the department. Before 2010, this goal was met — but in recent years, and particularly after the pandemic, the number of patients presenting to A&E and being seen within four hours is at an all time low of 62 per cent.
It was revealed in December that 42,100 patients in Scotland were waiting over 12 hours to be seen in Scottish emergency departments between January and October of last year. There have been reports of some Scottish patients having to stay up to four days to be seen, while others have been abandoned in hospital corridors and trolleys overnight during their waits.
Bed blocking
While patients have been left waiting to get seen in A&E, many of whom may need to be admitted to hospital, there are vast numbers of patients taking up beds unnecessarily. When Shona Robison was health secretary in 2015, she promised to completely eradicate delayed discharges. However, under Yousaf, bed blocking levels in Scotland have soared to new highs, with the average number of delayed bed days in November at 1,950.
Not only is bed blocking a logistical nightmare for hospitals, it has cost Scotland more than £1.2 billion over the last 10 years. And, according to Scottish Labour, since Yousaf became health secretary, 854,643 hospital days have been lost dealing with this issue.
Hospital waiting lists
When it comes to waiting lists for hospital appointments, Yousaf faces problems here too. Statistics released in November revealed that the number of people waiting for hospital procedures, outpatients appointments and diagnostic tests has jumped to 776,341 – or one in seven in Scotland.
Only two months earlier, at the end of September, it was revealed that over 2,000 people referred for an outpatient appointment, as well as over 7,000 people waiting for a surgery day case or inpatient procedure, had been waiting more than two years before being seen. This is despite Yousaf having vowed to end waits of over two years by this time.
As a result of long waiting lists, some NHS hospitals have more recently told patients they may be seen faster if they use private healthcare. On the November waiting list figures, Jackie Baillie of Scottish Labour warned: 'Make no mistake, Humza Yousaf’s incompetence is risking lives and creating the two-tier health service.’
Cancer treatment collapse
Humza Yousaf has also received fierce warnings in response to the decline in Scotland’s quality of cancer treatment over recent years. In figures released in September last year, almost a quarter of patients did not start treatment within the 62-day Scottish government standard. The target is for 95 per cent of cancer patients to begin treatment within this time period, yet in recent years this target has not been met.
Rates of cancer appear to be rising too, with predictions that the annual number of Scottish people diagnosed with the condition could reach over 42,000 in under two decades. Analysis from Cancer Research UK found that an ageing population is likely to result in more patients requiring treatment and follow-up care. ‘The health service in Scotland is just about treading water,’ the charity’s UK chief clinician said.
Drug and alcohol deaths
Scotland’s drug crisis has consistently made headlines over the last few years as rates of drug deaths in Scotland are higher than anywhere else in Europe. In 2020, there were 327 drug-induced deaths per million people, compared with 88 per million in the UK. In 2021, there were 1,330 drug-related deaths in Scotland, and alcohol and drug-related avoidable death rates increased for the ninth year in a row.
Abuse of benzodiazepines are on the rise, while opiates and opioids abuse account for the highest number of drug misuse deaths in the country. Those most likely to lose their lives from drug abuse are men between the age of 30 and 35, particularly those who most commonly live in some of Scotland’s most deprived areas.
Drug campaigners have been trying for years to get the Scottish government to do more to tackle this problem. Peter Krykant, a drug awareness activist based near Glasgow, has consistently made the case for the introduction of safe consumption rooms in the country, and for there to be better support for addicts once they leave rehab. Yet the statistics continue to present a damning indictment of the SNP's time in government.
Levels of alcohol-related deaths in Scotland are similarly bad. In 2021, the year that Yousaf became Scotland’s health secretary, there was a leap in the number of alcohol-specific deaths in the country from 1,190 in 2020 to 1,245 in 2021 – an increase of 55 deaths. This is the highest level that alcohol-specific deaths have reached since 2008.
‘Humza Yousaf should be utterly ashamed that Scotland’s avoidable death rate has climbed so high on his watch,’ said Dr Sandesh Gulhane, a Scottish Conservative. ‘These deaths are down to the SNP’s continued inability to get on top of Scotland’s tragic drug and alcohol epidemic.’ Jackie Baillie of Scottish Labour also slammed Yousaf, saying, ‘The SNP need to get a grip of this deadly crisis and appoint a health secretary who can tackle it, before any more lives are lost.’
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