Fully remobilising the NHS in Scotland after the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic will take years, Humza Yousaf has warned.
The SNP health secretary was speaking on the issue as health boards across the country continue to come under pressure because of the impact of coronavirus.
Bosses at NHS Lanarkshire were on Tuesday forced to cancel some planned surgeries, with the health board’s director of acute services Judith Park saying “the pressures on our hospitals are as severe as at any time in the whole pandemic”.
Accident and emergency departments are also under pressure, with the latest weekly figures showing almost a fifth (19.9%) of patients had to wait more than four hours to be dealt with.
Yousaf stressed that operations are not being cancelled “across the board”, but by “some health boards”.
While he accepted this has “an impact” on patients, he said it allows health services “to deal with the most urgent priorities”.
He also said some emergency departments are dealing with higher volumes of cases than they were before the pandemic, describing this as “quite extraordinary”.
He said the Scottish Government has given an additional £12 million to A&E departments “for them to be able to use in whatever way they think is appropriate”.
He insisted there are “no quick fixes”, but said emergency units are performing “well given the real, real challenges and pressures they are facing”.
The health secretary told the BBC: “The fact that eight out of 10 people are being seen within the four-hour treatment time target that we have, it doesn’t suggest to me they’re in crisis.
“Challenging for sure, difficult for sure, nobody is denying that, that is why we are giving additional funding to health boards.”
He said he has spoken to a “number of the health boards that are facing probably the most acute pressure”, explaining that they are often dealing with more complicated cases than pre-Covid.
Yousaf said: “We have just been through a huge shock here for the last 16 months where a number of people who might have presented during that 16 months haven’t presented and therefore are coming with more complexities.”
A plan for the full remobilisation of the NHS in Scotland will be published “shortly”, he promised, noting the SNP had committed to doing this within 100 days of the May 6 Holyrood election.
But he stressed: “The plan will be realistic. I am not going to sit there and tell people the NHS will be fully remobilised within a month, within two months, within three months.
“This is going to take years to fully remobilise our NHS. Anybody who presents you with some false solutions to this is being inaccurate.”
Scottish Lib Dems health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said: "There needs to be an honest acknowledgement that the NHS doesn't just need a post-Covid recovery plan, it needs a recovery plan from 14 years of SNP rule.
"Long before Covid-19 arrived, targets for A&E treatment, cancer waits and mental health were being routinely missed.
"Staff need more than warm words from the health secretary. That's why Scottish Liberal Democrats have set out proposals to use the skills and experience of our health service staff, together with the lessons learned from the innovation in the crisis, to get our NHS and our country’s health strong for the future."
