Dundee Liberal Democrats - www.dundeelibdems.scot

Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today urged the Health Secretary to give health professionals "a break this Christmas" and ease their workload, after another poor week of A&E performance figures were published this morning.

Official figures released today show performance against the 4-hour waiting time target sits at 87.4%. The Scottish Government's target is 95%. This has not been achieved since July 2017.

Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP today said patients in pain are facing "setback after setback" as new figures showed that just 45.6% of patients are now being seen within the NHS physio waiting time target, the lowest level since the current system of recording started in 2015.

Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has branded current waits for cancer treatment a "disgrace", as new statistics show quarterly performance against the 62 day target is at its worst since the standard was introduced in 2012.

The statistics published by ISD Scotland today show that only 81.4% of patients were seen within the 62-day waiting time target for the quarter 1 July to 30 September 2018. That's down from 84.6% in the previous quarter.

Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson Liam McArthur has today criticised SNP handling of the British Transport Police merger, as the Justice Secretary wrote to the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee to confirm that "all options for the enhanced accountability of railway policing in Scotland would be re-considered".

Responding to the news that there has been a reduction of 374 available staffed beds in the NHS in the last year, Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP commented:

"Improvements in healthcare have reduced the length of many hospital stays. However, the Scottish Government needs to think carefully before continuing to cut the number of NHS beds while delayed discharge continues to be a huge obstacle to delivering care and keeping hospitals moving.

It means that we have now secured a number of important changes to the Bill, including:

• Creating exemptions to the new offence of "entering or remaining in a designated area" so that it doesn't apply to aid workers, journalists, people visiting ill relatives or those attending funerals.
• Protecting journalism and academic research from the new offence of accessing terrorism-related material online.
• Requiring the Government to commission an independent review of the Prevent strategy.
• Limiting new powers to detain people at ports and airports to cases involving national security.

1. NHS 10 Year Plan

Our NHS badly needs support and everyone knows it. The Prime Minister was meant to put forward a ten year plan for the health service this year.

That didn't happen. Instead she has been forced to scramble for backbench support for her broken Brexit deal and run around Europe trying to grab last minute concessions.

Two years ago Brexit seemed inevitable. Now, with 117 Conservative MPs unable even to support the Prime Minister as Conservative leader, it is hard to see how she can get any version of her deal through when the Commons returns in January.

Meanwhile, 'no deal' is plainly unacceptable to all parties, except for the most extreme of Conservative backbenchers. Parliament is therefore in deadlock.