New claims of a whitewash by the NHS are rising against the Scottish Government after news emerged that some staff in hospitals were pressured into removing patients from some lists in order to meet yearly quotas. NHS Tayside for it part apologised to the public after the revelations came out from some of its staff in the investigation into these abuses. The data shows that a number of workers said there was some inappropriate behaviour like applying pressure to designate people as unavailable for treatment so they would instead be removed from treatment lists.
Health boards across the country went through audits after NHS Lothian was caught changing the waiting figures on lists in 2012 in order to meet new time targets. The results show that no deliberate or systematic manipulation of lists was done in other locations, but NHS shows that last year’s scandal led to many patients being removed from these lists for unavailability, without any real explanation as to why.
NHS Tayside added that it had put checks and balances to ensure that these practices would be identified and stopped. Waiting time management has apparently been an issue for quite some time. Two crew members were suspended during the investigation but have since then returned to work. In all, 14 Scottish health boards were asked to review the practices that went on after these accusations came out.
NHS Lanarkshire said that these unavailability statements were classified incorrectly but that the wrong usage was simple misunderstanding rather than deliberate misuse. But more people have been classified this way than ever before, up to 19,361 in 2011, before reducing to 9,537 by September 2012 after this scandal erupted in Lothian. An investigation is underway over these events.
