Cole-Hamilton to First Minister: SNP have failed social care and NHS

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today accused the First Minister of failing social care and the wider NHS in Scotland, highlighting the case study of a Highland resident who couldn’t get a local care home place due to closures and waiting lists.

Mr Cole-Hamilton asked:

“There is a crisis in social care in Scotland.

“Research by my colleague Angus MacDonald MP shows that, in the last decade, the number of care homes for older people in the Highlands fell by a fifth. That’s whilst the older population in that part of the country is surging.

“Duncan lived in Acharacle in the West Highlands- but when he needed a care home, the nearest available was in Fort Augustus. Because the local home to him had closed.

“That’s the equivalent of placing an Edinburgh resident at a care home in Dumfries.

“The travel time meant that his wife Nino was robbed of precious hours with her dying husband every single day. Time she can never get back.

“Does the First Minister think that that is acceptable?”

Responding to the First Minister, he said:

“It’s not just people like Nino that are being denied precious time with their loved ones.

“Because on any given night in this country, 2,000 Scots are stuck in hospital. They are well enough to leave but cannot.

“Why? Because there is no care home place to receive them, or a care package to help them home.

“That means hospitals are overwhelmed.

“That means people aren’t getting operations.

“That means ambulances are stacking up outside our A&E.

“So, can I ask the First Minister if he will commit with urgency:

“To building new care homes in areas like the West Highlands;

“To delivering key worker housing;

“And to boosting salaries to make social care a profession of choice?”