NHS crisis: Stop blaming patients for A&E hell, says doctor

A senior doctor has told Scottish ministers to drop “patient-blaming language” over “unnecessary attendances” at emergency departments.

Lailah Peel, the deputy chairwoman of the British Medical Association in Scotland, said the phrase suggested that patients were responsible for the problems and showed a misunderstanding of the issues.

Patients have waited 30 hours for beds in overcrowded A&E units while ambulances have queued outside hospitals waiting to hand over patients to overstretched staff.

Sturgeon, announcing measures to ease the strain, said: “To reduce the pressures in hospital and the knock-on impacts at the front door we need to do more firstly to avoid unnecessary attendances at hospital and second to speed up the discharge of patients from hospital.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times, 12 January 2023