John Swinney has apologised to patients in recent weeks after a series of hugely damaging reports and stories about Scotland’s struggling NHS.
After a report warned of a “devastating collapse in care standards”, the first minister promised his “unrelenting focus” on making sure “patients get the care they deserve”.
It is a belated acceptance that things have gone badly wrong by the SNP government, who for years relied on pointing to things being slightly worse in England.
That is no longer true. While clear targets were set to improve the health service north of the border post-pandemic, progress has stalled.
The amount of work undertaken in our hospitals has failed to return to pre-pandemic levels. At the current recovery rate, it will take years just to get back to where things were in 2020.
Instead of waits over a year being eliminated by September as had been promised, they were actually at a record high – over 38,000. Now, the target has been pushed further down the road.
In England, where the new Labour government has said the NHS is “broken”, progress on tackling these painfully long waits has been faster.
It doesn’t take a deep dive into hospital performance statistics to see something is wrong.
‘Most of us will know someone who has experienced a painful wait’
With 1 in 9 Scots languishing on a waiting list, most of us will know someone who has experienced a painful wait.
And The Courier has revealed how staff fear lives are being put at risk in Fife as patients are left on ambulances due to a lack of space inside the hospital.
Paramedics told me how they are forced to run a makeshift ward outside the A&E department, battling to keep patients comfortable as 999 calls stack up.
Staff are struggling to see those in the waiting room. Those who have the worst experience can wait 12 hours or more.
Even with the pressure of winter and a particularly nasty flu virus, this isn’t symptomatic of a well-run health service able to respond to a rise in demand.
And it’s that reality that presents real political danger for First Minister John Swinney.
His lead in the polls shows he remains the favourite to win the Scottish elections next year, but that’s an outcome which is far from certain if he fails to turn-around the problems in the NHS.
Scots value the importance of public services. While we understand that they might never be perfect, we do expect them to work most of the time.
Blaming Westminster won’t cut it
And with a report from the Royal College of Nursing revealing the grim reality of overcrowding, the Scottish Government can no longer hide for the reality that the NHS just isn’t working.
So Mr Swinney was right to apologise. But government is about more than words. Delivery will matter far more.
Blaming Westminster or the after effects of the pandemic won’t cut it.
This demand for delivery over bombast is something Mr Swinney should be well aware of. His voters in Perthshire North are not natural supporters of independence, voting against it in 2014, but at successive elections have backed the SNP.
This support comes in part because the SNP, at least pre-2020, enjoyed a reputation for good government.
People may have disagreed with some of their policies, but by and large they saw a party that delivered.
If Mr Swinney cannot get a grip on the NHS and show real improvements, he risks being defined by the crisis.
It cannot just be a priority for a week or two. His focus on the issue must be truly relentless.
Otherwise a public which is expecting answers may find themselves struggling to put their faith in the SNP at the ballot box.
Conversation