Covid pandemic cannot be used as an excuse for failing A&E, says MSP

A row has broken out over pleas from NHS chiefs for residents to avoid the area’s A&E emergency department.Labour’s Shadow Health Minister Paul O’Kane used Scottish Government health supremo’s statement to the Holyrood parliament on pandemic pressures on Thursday, to grill the Health Secretary over the latest stay away warning.The politician said pleas to steer clear of emergency departments is leaving residents “between a rock and a hard place”, and pointed out that the under-pressure NHS 24 telephone service left 240,000 calls unanswered, figures show, between last September and January.NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde chiefs this week issued a fresh plea to residents to keep away from struggling A&E departments - including Paisley’s stretched Royal Alexandra Hospital.They blamed the current spike in Covid cases for the emergency order and asked anyone whose situation was not “urgent or life threatening” to seek help elsewhere, including from GPs or NHS24.West Scotland list MSP Paul branded the situation “incredibly worrying”.He told Holyrood that he believed ordering patients to use NHS 24 instead of A&E departments left them in a “precarious position, not knowing where to turn often in very serious situations”.And he pressed Health Secretary on the Scottish Government’s plans to recruit more workers to shore up NHS24, as well as the perilous situation facing the NHS, saying: “It’s incredibly worrying that it was in August 2021 that NHSGG&C began to issue the A&E message and that now we find ourselves, for the third day in a row, in March 2022 receiving that same message not to attend unless we have a life threatening condition.“For people to be told to not go to A&E in Inverclyde or in Paisley but to use NHS 24 instead