Addressing NHS Waiting Times (Amendment 2)
S6M-06073.2: As an amendment to motion S6M-06073 in the name of Sandesh Gulhane (Addressing NHS Waiting Times), insert at end “; notes that the increasing problems with NHS staff and recruitment, with 6,010 nursing and midwifery vacancies alone, will have a direct impact on waiting times; believes that staff should not face unsafe staffing levels on any shift; deeply regrets the impact of waiting times on both patients and staff, and calls on the Scottish Government to set up an urgent inquiry into avoidable deaths linked to the emergency care crisis, following estimates from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine that long waits have contributed to hundreds of avoidable deaths in 2022.”

Original motion(S6M-06073):
That the Parliament is concerned by the length and scale of NHS waiting times; notes that A&E, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), cancer and routine treatment waiting times are well short of where they need to be; recognises that the root cause of this problem is a lack of beds in NHS hospitals; regrets, therefore, that the Scottish Government is focussed more on structural reform than building greater capacity into the social care system; notes that the NHS Recovery Plan is failing to have a demonstrably positive impact on waiting times, and calls, therefore, on the Scottish Government to rewrite its NHS Recovery Plan ahead of this winter.