Over 400,000 operations lost and counting

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today called on the Health Secretary to devise a new NHS Recovery Plan because “we are way beyond crisis point,” after new Liberal Democrat analysis revealed that 408,361 operations have been lost since the pandemic first began.

Scottish Liberal Democrat analysis of Public Health Scotland figures has compared average pre-Covid levels of NHS activity with the number of operations scheduled over the past three years.

The analysis also showed there was a 24% decrease between the number of operations scheduled in April and the average pre-pandemic levels.

Mr Cole-Hamilton commented:  

“Humza Yousaf’s time as Health Secretary left our NHS on its knees and the backlog of operations just keeps getting worse and worse. 

"We are way beyond crisis point now, yet nothing seems to be enough to prompt the SNP Government into the urgent action that is required.

“It’s now abundantly clear that the government must scrap its ineffective NHS Recovery Plan and urgently devise a new one which will prioritise the recruitment and retention of staff through a burnout prevention strategy and a staff and social care assembly."