Nearly 2,000 people stuck in hospital

Responding to new Public Health Scotland figures which showed 1,961 people were stuck in hospital in July who were fit to leave but whose discharge was being delayed for reasons such as a lack of home care packages, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said:

“Under SNP management, huge numbers of people are stuck in hospital unnecessarily. It's worsening their health, contributing to record-breaking waits in A&E and leading to dangerous ambulance delays.

“The SNP’s ministerial takeover of social care will do nothing to ease the pressure on services - it must be scrapped.

“Scottish Liberal Democrats would devote the money from this billion-pound bureaucracy to frontline services and staff instead. We have a plan to fix the crisis in social care, relieving pressure on the NHS through a minimum wage for care workers that is £2 higher and enabling people to be released from hospital when they are fit to do so.”