Interventional Radiologists

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 29 May 2018.

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Photo of Edward Mountain Edward Mountain Conservative

2. To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that there are sufficient and substantive interventional radiologists in every major hospital in Scotland. (S5T-01113)

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

Under this Government, clinical radiology consultants who work in NHS Scotland have increased by more than 43 per cent. We are expanding the Scottish radiology training programme by 50 places over five years from this year, which builds on an on-going programme of expansion of 36 places from a starting baseline of 104 places in 2014. We have also launched a global radiology recruitment campaign.

Alongside the £4 million radiology transformation programme that is already under way, such actions underline our commitment to ensuring that NHS Scotland retains world-class radiology services.

Photo of Edward Mountain Edward Mountain Conservative

I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer and for the completely surprising letter that I received at 12 o’clock today, which laid that out. I do not normally get letters from the cabinet secretary: perhaps I should ask more topical questions.

Bearing in mind what the cabinet secretary has said, let us look at the facts. We are sitting on more unread radiology films, a bill of nearly £4 million per year for outsourcing, 14 per cent of radiology posts remaining unfilled, a failed overseas recruitment campaign and those who need interventional radiology for cancer treatment and palliative care not getting treatment on time. The SNP Government has been running the NHS for 11 years. Will the cabinet secretary accept her Government’s failures for those performance figures?

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

Any time Edward Mountain cares to write to me, he will get a reply. I hope that he found the contents of my letter helpful in addressing the issue that he has raised today at topical question time.

Edward Mountain talked about X-ray images being sent abroad, which was raised at First Minister’s question time last week, when the First Minister rightly said that the key priority is to provide high-quality and safe services to patients. She also said that boards can, in order to ensure that scans are seen quickly by qualified professionals, utilise the services of radiologists outwith Scotland. Of course, that is done routinely in England and Wales and elsewhere. To help to grow local capacity, we are investing £4 million in the transformation programme to improve capacity across Scotland.

Edward Mountain is wrong to say that that the recruitment campaign is “a failed ... campaign”, because it is on-going. Offers have already been made to some candidates, and others are receiving on-going additional support to achieve their fellowship of the Royal College of Radiologists or certificate of eligibility for specialist registration qualifications, in order that they can practise as consultants in Scotland, bearing in mind that qualifications from the countries from which candidates originate need to be aligned with qualifications here. The short-listing stage is on-going; we are very confident that many candidates from that stage will be offered substantive appointments. I hope that that reassures the member that the recruitment campaign is on-going. I will be happy to keep him updated as we take that forward.

Photo of Edward Mountain Edward Mountain Conservative

If I may, I will concentrate on the recruitment campaign. Dr Grant Baxter, who chairs the standing Scottish committee of the Royal College of Radiologists, says that the campaign “has failed”. Let us be clear and get the figures right: 43 people applied for the jobs. They were whittled down to three, none of whom is being employed in NHS Highland.

Let us look at the situation there. From August,

NHS Highland will have no interventional radiologists, which means that elective, general and emergency surgery will be severely affected. Will the cabinet secretary now guarantee that an interventional radiologist will be in place at Raigmore hospital before the current one leaves? If not, will surgery have to be moved outwith the Highlands? How will she explain that to Highlanders, and especially those who have a life-threatening need for interventional radiology?

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

I go back to the recruitment campaign. Edward Mountain mentioned the three candidates to whom offers have been made. Those offers were unconditional offers of appointment. However, if he had listened to my original answer, he would know that there is a separate process under way to make sure that the qualifications of the longer list of people who have expressed an interest in coming to Scotland under the recruitment campaign are aligned with the required qualifications here. Those people are getting support with that alignment process, and we are confident that a number of them will be appointed, including in the north of Scotland.

With regard to Edward Mountain’s question about interventional radiology, I do not know whether he is aware that eight to 10 additional training places for interventional radiology have been provided over the past six years. We are working very closely with NHS Education for Scotland to make sure that those additional training places deliver for the whole of Scotland, including the north of Scotland. He will be aware of the increase in the number of consultants whose specialty is clinical radiology who are working in NHS Scotland, including in NHS Highland. However, there is more work to be done, which is why the transformation programme is so important.

Perhaps Edward Mountain could, instead of criticising it, get behind the global recruitment campaign to attract radiologists to Scotland, which is proving to be successful in bringing people here.

Photo of Edward Mountain Edward Mountain Conservative

I am not criticising the global recruitment campaign; it is the senior radiologist in Scotland who says that it is failing. I just want to get the facts and figures.

The cabinet secretary has not answered the substantive question. From August, there will be no interventional radiologists in the Highlands. The health service can train as many as it likes, but they will not be in post in two months’ time. People in the Highlands are worried that they will not get their surgery and that, in emergency situations, they will not have access to the radiologists that they need. What assurances can the cabinet secretary give them?

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

Patients will get the services, the treatment and the interventions that they require. A lot of work is being done—not only to recruit to the substantive posts, but to make sure that we get radiology services for the north of Scotland to a sustainable position in which patients in the NHS Highland area continue to get those services.

Edward Mountain should, instead of criticising from the sidelines, support and get behind practical initiatives such as the global recruitment campaign, through which we are working hard to bring radiologists to Scotland.

Photo of Anas Sarwar Anas Sarwar Labour

What a complacent and pathetic set of answers we have had from the cabinet secretary on the day when official statistics show that, because of her Government’s failures, in the first three months of this year almost 18,000 people did not get their diagnostics in time. The same set of statistics shows that almost 17,000 patients have been failed in the treatment time guarantee. That means that the cabinet secretary has broken her own law 17,000 times in three months.

In the press release that she has issued in response, the cabinet secretary blames one week of bad weather, when we had the beast from the east, but one week of bad weather does not explain statistics on three months of failure and, in the cabinet secretary’s case, four years of failure. When will she finally get her head out of the sand, apologise to patients and deliver real and meaningful change?

Photo of Kenneth Macintosh Kenneth Macintosh Labour

I ask Anas Sarwar to be careful in his use of language. It is very important to be respectful. I recognise the passion that the member wishes to get across, but I ask him to be respectful of other members, please.

Photo of Shona Robison Shona Robison Scottish National Party

I remind Anas Sarwar of what the rest of the press release says. It says that the £50 million that we announced last year has been delivering a huge reduction in out-patient waits: more than 23,000 fewer patients are now waiting for an out-patient appointment.

Yesterday, an additional £50 million was announced. That £50 million will be focused on diagnostics and the treatment time guarantee. [

Interruption

.] If Anas Sarwar would listen to the answer, he might learn something.

The investment in diagnostics is hugely important. That is why the Golden Jubilee national hospital has just made a huge investment in additional magnetic resonance imaging scanners, which will enable it to deliver 10,000 additional scans over the course of this year.

Diagnostics is a priority. On average, waits for cancer diagnostics are within two weeks, because we recognise that cancer patients should get priority when it comes to diagnostics. More investment in diagnostics—out-patient and in-patient—will begin to make a huge improvement over the next few weeks and months.