NHS Scotland in a perilous situation, says doctors' union

Scotland's NHS is in "a perilous situation" amid a staffing and funding crisis, according to the chairman of the doctors' union.

Dr Iain Kennedy said urgent action was needed to tackle workload pressures ahead of a potentially "terrifying" winter period.

It comes after Scotland's health secretary Humza Yousaf admitted NHS Scotland was not performing well. Mr Yousaf told BBC Scotland it would take at least five years to fix.

Dr Kennedy, who is chairman of the industry body BMA Scotland, said it was good to hear Mr Yousaf being honest about the scale of the problems, but added that "frankly we cannot wait five years" for things to improve.

He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "The NHS in Scotland is in a perilous situation and we have a particular crisis around the workforce - we simply do not have enough doctors in general practice and in hospitals.

"We need more urgent action because the pressures and the workload have really shot up."

Dr Kennedy has called on the government to publish a "heat map" showing where NHS vacancies are unfilled across Scotland.

He said: "The public need to see transparency on where the vacancies are. We think that there are probably 15% vacancies across hospital consultant posts across Scotland.

"Even the government admits to 7% and that we are at least 800 GPs short in Scotland - and I, and others, suspect we are probably well over that figure now."

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Source: BBC News, 31 October 2022