YP Comment: Stop the NHS blame culture. The 449-day wait for discharge

Though these cases are, thankfully, the exception to the rule, they’re emblematic of the urgent need for NHS hospitals to work in tandem with social care providers to stop the indignity of A&E patients being treated on trolleys in busy corridors because of a shortage of beds.

And this requires local, regional and national decision-makers taking responsibility. Like David Cameron before her, it’s galling to listen to Theresa May at PMQs say that the Tories are providing more funding than Labour who she says are responsible for even greater healthcare failings in devolved Wales.

With respect Mrs May, this is happening on your watch – the latest raft of NHS performance figures on cancer care and A&E waiting times make very sobering reading – and there must be fundamental failings somewhere if the Government’s investment is not having the desired benefits.

This is not to decry those frontline staff doing their very best – their professionalism, commitment and good humour masks even greater shortcomings. Nevertheless these pressures will only intensify due to an ageing society. It means recruiting and retaining more GPs to ease the pressure on hospitals, examining 
how the elderly can be 
cared for in their own surroundings and making sure that there are sufficient care homes available.

Has anyone thought of converting redundant or soon-to-close hospitals into care facilities for OAPs? Just one random idea, it’s an example of the type of pragmatism which could be more effective than the current blame culture.

Healthy remedies

WHAT are possible remedies for the National Health Service? One possible prescription – education – is ignored by pointscoring politicians at their peril. Not only does society need to be better informed about the 
benefits of healthy living, and how this will assist the NHS in time, but students need to be actively encouraged to pursue careers in medicine, nursing and related disciplines. one estimate says 1.6m carers alone will be required by 2022.

Will they, however, have the inclination to do so when they hear daily horror stories about hospitals in a perpetual state of chaos because they are so understaffed? And, if this doesn’t put them off, will they have the requisite qualifications when a growing number of lessons are taken by classroom assistants, or supply staff, rather than fully fledged teachers?

As Anne Longfield, the Otley-raised Children’s Commissioner, visits Hull to explore the reasons behind the North-South skills gap, the Government must not ignore the latest warnings from teaching leaders about their own staffing challenges. If the country is train more medical professionals of its own, the expressed desire of most patients, this exercise begins in Britain’s schools, and then making sure that the relevant universities and teaching hospitals are properly funded. However it won’t happen if successive ministers – Labour were just as bad as the Tories and vice-versa – continue to demoralise the medical and teaching professions for not meeting targets set by Whitehall’s meddlers who do not always know best. A healthy dose of joined-up government is overdue.

Score settling

IT appears the Brexit negotiations will be a proverbial piece of cake compared to Whexit, the power struggle between Whitby and Scarborough.

Apparently fed up at being ignored by its ‘big brother’ down the coast with delays to pier repairs identified as the latest injustice, perceived or otherwise, Whitby’s independent-minded councillors have, in an act of rebellion, passed a vote of no confidence in Scarborough Council’s leadership. Not even a tug-of-war on the beach between civic leaders from the two towns is likely to settle this score – and that’s a pity.

If Yorkshire’s resorts are to prosper, and they all have socio-economic challenges, their leaders need to behave like grown-ups – they shouldn’t need a fortune teller to remind them that Scarborough and Whitby’s future prosperity depends on both resorts broadening their appeal to tourists.