| Mr Clive Davis said the requests were made to ensure waiting times targets were met, but doctors had refused and treated cancer patients as a priority.
Mr Davis’ comments came as Scottish Health Minister Andy Kerr was announcing “best ever” waiting times figures.
The ear, nose and throat specialist, was speaking in his capacity as chairman of the British Medical Association’s Scottish Consultants’ Committee, about a national situation.
Asked if the practice was happening locally, he replied “Not to my knowledge.”
The most senior manager responsible for Ninewells Hospital, Gerry Marr, said today “It is unacceptable practice to ask a specific doctor to change his practice.”
Mr Davis said this year alone, at meetings of the committee, members from three different health boards in Scotland spoke of requests to treat less serious cases ahead of cancer patients.
In one case a manager approached an individual consultant’s secretary and asked that arrangements be made for wisdom teeth to be extracted ahead of cancer patients. Mr Davis said doctors refused.
He was unable to say how widespread the practice of putting pressure on clinical teams was to change the priority to ensure waiting times targets are met.
“I don’t think we know if these are isolated events or not,” he said. “It would be interesting to know.”
Six years ago, Ninewells Hospital based surgeon Robert Wood called on cancer patients to lie about the severity of their symptoms to jump the queue for surgery.
A top manager at the time strenuously denied that the political priority of getting down waiting lists was overriding clinical priorities, and leading routine surgical cases to be treated ahead of cancer patients.
The SNP’s Shadow Health Minister and MSP for Dundee East, Shona Robison, said, “I am concerned by these allegations.
“The minister must order a full investigation to ensure those responsible for such unacceptable actions are held to account and that this practice ceases immediately. The needs of patients, not NHS administrators, should always come first.”
Today’s latest quarterly figures, published by the Scottish Executive’s Information Services Division, showed that,at the end of March, no patient in Scotland with a guarantee had waited more than six months for inpatient or day case treatment or for a first outpatient appointment.
Some patients fall outwith the guarantee because they have another clinical condition that means their operation can’t go ahead as planned or they have personal reasons for choosing to delay.
The local breakdown for the first three months of this year shows that almost half of Tayside’s inpatients and day cases were actually treated within three months.
The Tories poured scorn on the figures, accusing the Executive of recycling “exactly the same con” as in March when the previous statistics were issued. |
