NHS LOTHIAN ADMITS “MASSAGING” WAITING TIMES!!!

NHS Lothian Board has been “massaging” waiting times figures to mislead the Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, and the public.

The conduct of the Board is disgraceful.

The SDC calls upon the Health Secretary to conduct an enquiry into NHS Lothian’s practice of offering patients, often from West Lothian, operations in Northumberland and Harrogate. When these patients refuse, they are then withdrawn from the waiting times guarantee!

This highlights the key point that the SDC has repeatedly made about the Board. The Board is not to be trusted. We believe that this latest scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. For all we know, all NHS Lothian statistics may be “massaged” in some way.

The person who has admitted what NHS Lothian Board is doing is none other than Sandra Mair, deputy Chief Operating Officer. Her statement has been reported in the Sunday Times on the 23 rd of October. She has no shame in broadcasting NHS Lothian’s questionable practices. She, like many Board members, appears to think that they are unaccountable and untouchable.

We ask the Health Secretary, “are you willing to make NHS Lothian Board accountable and answerable to you?”

At a time of major financial cuts, the Board is prepared to pay for some patients to travel to English hospitals for surgery. They do not want these operations to be done at St John’s as they used to be. This is financial madness and it emphasises how much NHS Lothian is prepared to pay to keep patients away from St John’s and so downgrade the hospital.

The greatest threat at present to St John’s Hospital is the potential closure of the children’s ward. The Board denies this is imminent. We can’t and we don’t believe them. Watch this space. Soon there will be much wringing of hands as the Board announces that the children’s ward is no longer safe and sustainable due to changes in doctors’ working hours. They will shed crocodile tears as they ask us to send our children to Edinburgh so that they “get the best possible care.”

The real issue is that the Board wants to save money in West Lothian in order to build a new childrens’s hospital at the Royal Infirmary for Edinburgh people.

We will pay for this through our taxes and through the suffering of our children who will be forced to travel 80 miles or more, there and back to Little France.

Wait for our newsletters and watch the media. There is more to come!!

Read the Scotsman article here