Staff at the region’s under pressure health board have been working extra hours in their free time due to concerns for patients facing long waiting times.
The revelation was made by an MSP on Holyrood’s health, social care and sport committee as they grilled NHS Forth Valley chief executive Cathie Cowan on a range of issues including staff culture, mental health services and turnover rates.
The meeting was part of the committee’s go-round with all of the chief executives of Scotland’s NHS boards – with Forth Valley facing scrutiny after being escalated to stage four of the Scottish Government’s national performance framework in November.
It followed concerns related to governance, leadership and culture – as well as poor performance in areas such as out-of-hours care and waiting times.
Central Scotland Green MSP Gillian Mackay grilled Ms Cowan on the improvements made since the escalation, quoting the resignation of five respiratory consultants over a “toxic culture” at the flagship Forth Valley Royal Hospital.
Ms Mackay also raised the case of members of psychological therapy staff, who she claimed had been in touch in the 24 hours leading up to Tuesday’s meeting to say they were working unpaid hours due to concerns for patients over “two-year waits” in the system.
In her response, Ms Cowan said: “We have been able to recruit additional staff in psychological therapies, in which we previously had below the national average. The fact is that being below the national average has an impact on performance.”
She added in a later answer: “As for the member of staff who spoke to Gillian Mackay, I will absolutely follow that up.
“We would not expect anyone to work unpaid hours in order to address waiting times. In fact, you will see from our submission that we have worked hard to address long waits.
“As far as performance is concerned, we have continually sat in the 70 per cent area, even with the backdrop of our not having staff in post.”
On the issue of staff culture, Ms Cowan said: “I am very close to staff and have high visibility.
“The areas that have been referred to are on the acute hospital site, in particular, and people who have been following what has been happening there will have seen that a number of staff were, for a variety of reasons, not working in their substantive posts but were acting in posts.
“In order to fill the space, we decided to bring in an acting manager while we looked to recruit to other posts, which has enabled people – for example, our chief nurse on the acute site – to go back to their substantive posts and has allowed us to bring in an additional doctor for our front door.
“If you were to ask staff just now, as I regularly do, they would say that things feel better.”
Stirling MSP Evelyn Tweed addressed her question to Ms Cowan on the long-running issue of CAMHS services in the region, which have faced long waits for young people requiring mental health support.
The most recent figures released for the period between October and December 2022 revealed a drop in the numbers still waiting for CAMHS support for a year or more – although the percentage of people on the waiting list for 36 weeks or more was higher than the previous quarter.
The Scottish Government target is for 90 per cent of children and young people to begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral to CAMHS.
Responding to Ms Tweed’s question on rates of progress, Ms Cowan responded: “You are right to point out that we have made progress.
“Coming out of the pandemic, our focus was on dealing with our long waits. You will see that they were significant.
“I am pleased to say that we have addressed those long waits, and I think that staff feel really good about that, because they impact on staff with children and families whom they feel they are not supporting.
“Tackling of long waits is now enabling us to deal with the front of the waiting list, so you will very quickly see us moving from a really poor position of having 18-week waits to achieving the standard by the first quarter of this year, in April to June.”
