IT is no secret that I care immensely about the Vale of Leven Hospital, and throughout my years as your MSP I have always stood shoulder to shoulder with local people and healthcare professionals to ensure we have the highest standard of care.

Our frontline health and social care staff work tirelessly to keep us safe – not least over the last 18 months.

That’s why it angers me so much when I see our services not being given the resources they need, and the staff given the support they need, to do their job.

In recent weeks, my inbox has been inundated with emails from local people who have been queuing for many hours at accident and emergency units, or people who have waited far too long for ambulances to arrive.

They have simply not been able to access the care that they need.

I have spoken with an elderly gentleman who was left waiting 31 hours for an ambulance to show up and a mother who was turned away from the Vale because she hadn’t had the time to call NHS 111 first, when she feared her daughter was seriously ill.

This is not the standard of service we deserve.

It is certainly not the smooth-running operation that the Scottish Government claims it to be.

The Scottish Government promised a re-mobilisation plan for health services, but that is still missing whilst the pressure mounts.

There is no denying that the pandemic has created unprecedented pressure for our NHS.

But I have spent my summer speaking to health and social care professionals and patients, and from those conversations, one thing is clear – many of the issues with our health service pre-date the pandemic, and they are problems that won’t be solved without urgent and extensive action from the Scottish Government.

There is a crisis in our NHS workforce which has been brewing for more than a decade and is having a huge impact on the running of services.

When a patient is left waiting for hours and hours to be seen at A&E, or to have an ambulance arrive, it is not the fault of the doctor, nurse or paramedic who are doing everything they can to provide the best quality of care.

It is the fault of those in positions of power who, time and time again, failed to provide solutions.

As restrictions continue to ease, we must give our frontline workers and services the support that they need.

That means the urgent remobilisation of the NHS – both primary and acute – and a workforce plan for the future.

Our NHS heroes deserve better, local patients deserve better, and our government must do better.