Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon will face the wrath of the public next week when she chairs NHS Fife’s annual review in Kirkcaldy, The Courier can reveal.
Public health minister Shona Robison was set to chair the event at Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital on Tuesday.
But in an exclusive interview with The Courier during which she praised this newspaper’s State of Emergency Burning Issues campaign Ms Sturgeon said she wanted to be there in person.
She told The Courier, “Given some of the issues that we’ve seen in the last few weeks, I’ve taken the decision to chair this session myself.
“It’s right, given the concerns that people have had and the issues that Fife are grappling with, that I go and make sure that we’re asking them the right questions and that people are hearing the answers.
“Members of the public who, I absolutely understand, are concerned about the accident and emergency services, can come along if they want to and hear us discuss these issues in a public session.”
She added, “The more the public can get involved in decisions about the health service, and express the passion that’s been expressed through your pages in recent days, the better, in my view.
“I always welcome public and people might find this a bit strange media interest in the health service, because people are passionate about the health service. I’m passionate about the health service.
“It’s personal to us, we all care about it and we all rely on it at various times in our lives, so I really welcome public engagement.”Pressure to actMs Sturgeon has been under pressure from opposition politicians to act on accident and emergency closures at Victoria.
Difficulties in drawing up doctors’ rotas for Fife’s two A&E sites at Victoria and Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline and restrictions on hiring locums from abroad led to NHS Fife drawing up the contingency measure of temporarily downgrading the Victoria A&E overnight.
With health boards taking on newly qualified junior doctors in August, Ms Sturgeon said NHS Fife’s intake this year was sufficient to keep both A&E units open, but there was still no guarantee the contingency would not be used again because there was always the possibility of staff going off ill.
She said, “NHS Fife have an experienced and very capable management team.
“Like all management teams in the NHS, they deal with very difficult circumstances.”
She added, “I think they were right to put the contingency arrangement in place because patient safety has to come first in everything the health service does.
“I’m very clear with Fife, and Fife have been reassuring me, that will be a last resort.”Reconfiguring servicesMs Sturgeon said she had confidence in the reconfiguration of services under Right For Fife, which will see a single A&E at Victoria serving the region from 2012.
She said, “The new Victoria Hospital is obviously a massive investment. I have no doubt that significant patient benefits will flow from that.”
As for the national picture, an Audit Scotland report this week warned of “emerging staffing difficulties” at A&E units across the country and called for a national solution. Ms Sturgeon said that the government was working towards resolving the problem.
She said, “We’re involved in a strand of work just now that’s called Reshaping The Medical Workforce. Basically, a lot of service delivery in hospitals is done by doctors in training.
“We’re trying to shift to a situation where most of the service is delivered by trained doctors and doctors in training are simply there being trained.”
She added, “It will, over the medium to long term, deal with some of the shorter-term issues we’ve been experiencing, not just in Fife.”
On the issue of funding challenges, Ms Sturgeon is hoping the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government at Westminster delivers benefits for Scotland.
She said, “The UK Government has given a commitment to a real terms increase in the health budget. That’s welcome and I hope they stick to that because if they do then we’ll be able to pass on the consequential money that we get in Scotland to the health service in Scotland.
“It doesn’t mean that the health service won’t have some difficult financial challenges ahead, but it does mean that it’ll be in a better position than it might have been otherwise.”
She added, “I believe that we should all have very high expectations of the health service we all pay for it, after all.
“We talk about free healthcare and it is at the point of use, but it’s not free to any of us because we pay for it through our taxes and national insurance so we’ve got a right to expect high standards of it.”
Ms Sturgeon said, “We always have to be looking at the best use of money to provide those high standards.
“Technology, the development of new drugs all of that carries on apace and we need to make sure the health service can keep up with that while using taxpayers’ money efficiently and effectively.”
Increasing private sector involvement is not necessarily a way of saving money, Ms Sturgeon said.
She said, “I’ve nothing against the private sector, I just believe we have a duty to build and maintain a public health service. That’s what people pay for through their taxes.
“Bringing the private sector into the health service doesn’t mean we don’t have to pay for it, we just pay for it in a different way. I’m not convinced that it is a solution to the financial challenges in the way some people suggest.”
She added, “The NHS is one of the success stories for devolution. Does that mean we don’t have room for improvement in the health service? Of course not.
“I think the health service, by its nature, will always have room for improvement. But I think devolution has allowed us to set our own policy direction, do things that are right for Scotland, and take decisions that are right for Scotland.
“We’ve made huge strides forward but there are still challenges ahead.”
She added, “I believe that we should all have very high expectations of the health service we all pay for it, after all.
“We talk about free healthcare and it is at the point of use, but it’s not free to any of us because we pay for it through our taxes and national insurance so we’ve got a right to expect high standards of it.”
Ms Sturgeon said, “We always have to be looking at the best use of money to provide those high standards.
“Technology, the development of new drugs all of that carries on apace and we need to make sure the health service can keep up with that while using taxpayers’ money efficiently and effectively.”
Increasing private sector involvement is not necessarily a way of saving money, Ms Sturgeon said.
She said, “I’ve nothing against the private sector, I just believe we have a duty to build and maintain a public health service. That’s what people pay for through their taxes.
“Bringing the private sector into the health service doesn’t mean we don’t have to pay for it, we just pay for it in a different way. I’m not convinced that it is a solution to the financial challenges in the way some people suggest.”
She added, “The NHS is one of the success stories for devolution. Does that mean we don’t have room for improvement in the health service? Of course not.
“I think the health service, by its nature, will always have room for improvement. But I think devolution has allowed us to set our own policy direction, do things that are right for Scotland, and take decisions that are right for Scotland.
“We’ve made huge strides forward but there are still challenges ahead.”