Commenting on the Scottish government announcement that NHS Ayrshire and Arran health board is being moved to a higher level of support to deal with its financial challenges*, UNISON Scotland health lead Matt McLaughlin said:
“There appears to be no extra money invested in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, other than what was announced in the recent Scottish budget.
“The truth is the health board is forced to spend tens of thousands of pounds daily on delayed discharges and that’s down to the Scottish government’s failure to tackle the crisis in social care.
“The significant problems in NHS Ayrshire and Arran can’t be fixed until hundreds of vacant health service jobs are filled and there’s better support for staff working flat out to provide care to their patients.”
Notes to editors:
– *The Scottish government has announced NHS Ayrshire and Arran health board is being moved to stage four of the NHS Scotland Support and Intervention Framework. This means more government support will be given because of the severity of financial problems.
– UNISON is the largest health union, representing over 60,000 NHS staff in Scotland including nurses, midwives, call handlers, paramedics, administrators, allied professional staff, caterers, porters and facilities staff.