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Dr Fiona Hunter, vice chair of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Scotland, has expressed profound alarm over the increasingly severe pressures facing Scotland’s NHS as winter approaches. Speaking to BBC Scotland, she described the current care levels in A&E departments as “unsafe,” revealing that some patients have been left on hospital trolleys for as long as 72 hours in corridors. Despite commitments from Health Secretary Angela Constance to eliminate corridor care, Hunter highlighted the disturbing normalization of this practice, which can result in fatal outcomes for patients.
The Health Secretary acknowledged the challenges posed by the upcoming winter, reinforcing that corridor care must not be accepted. Constance emphasized efforts to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions through strong public messaging to encourage appropriate use of medical services. She also noted plans to improve data collection around corridor care and advocated for treating winter preparedness as a continuous, year-round process rather than a seasonal response.
Concerns grew after First Minister John Swinney announced a significant health board restructuring plan, aiming to reduce the number of mainland health boards from 11 to 2 to create more capacity and free up staff time. Yet, with such reforms still distant, frontline staff continue to face overwhelming conditions. Hunter described emergency departments as being “stacked with ambulances” outside and overloaded with trolleys lining corridors. She stressed that trolley mattresses are intended only for short periods of up to four hours, but many patients endure much longer stays, sometimes for up to three days, increasing the risk of excess mortality.
In addition to the strain on emergency services, delayed hospital discharges are compounding problems, with nearly 2,000 patients each month unable to leave hospital promptly. Councillor Paul Kelly, spokesman for health and social care at Cosla, characterized the NHS difficulties as a “year-round crisis” and stressed the urgent need for investment in social care to help ease these pressures. Kelly highlighted the significant budget gaps faced by health and social care partnerships and insisted that financial support is critical to prevent patients from remaining in hospital longer than necessary. Overall, the consensus among healthcare leaders is that immediate and sustained action is essential to manage the system’s current and future challenges without compromising patient safety
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
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