'Years of improvement' lost by health board due to Covid

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption, Jeff Ace said 10 to 15 years of waiting time improvement had been lost due to Covid
At a glance
  • NHS Dumfries and Galloway's chief executive Jeff Ace says years of improvement in healthcare have been lost due to Covid
  • He warns any recovery will probably require a career-long effort
  • Mr Ace adds that there remains "uncertainty" over whether cases could flare up again

The chief executive of a Scottish health board has said "years of improvement" in service provision have been lost due to Covid.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway's Jeff Ace warned the recovery period from the pandemic would be measured in "months and years".

Infection rates in the region have been coming down in line with the rest of the country as restrictions are lifted.

However, Mr Ace said the impact on healthcare would not be resolved overnight.

"We're聽a damaged system, you know, we've been running two years in聽an emergency situation聽now - two years dealing with issues and problems that we've never seen before," he said.

"Its disruption to our normal service model - whether that's elective care or the normal way that our GP services and our community services work聽- has聽just been incredibly profound."

Image source, MJ Richardson

Image caption, Mr Ace said the recovery period would be measured in months and years

He said that made any planning for getting services back to normal very difficult.

"Somehow,聽with staff teams that are pretty much exhausted and聽pretty thinly聽stretched聽at the moment, we've got to create a recovery trajectory," he said.

"We've got to get people talking about improvement again聽and how do we get back to the levels of service that we've seen in the past."

However, Mr Ace said that would take some time even once those conversations began.

"If you look at simple waiting times, we've probably lost 10 or 15 years of improvement in the last two years," he said.

"It's聽of that scale and so the recovery聽period is聽going to be聽measured聽in months and years.

"It's not going to be a week's progress that we'll be suddenly flying聽again聽and everything will feel normal.

"This will be the challenge of the rest of our careers to rebuild a service model that really meets the performance targets that people聽would expect us to achieve."

He said there had been "flashes of optimism" in the past but warned cases could kick back up again.

"We're all nervously,聽I聽guess,聽studying around the world, seeing what's happening," he said.

"At the聽moment it聽looks聽a positive picture聽just about everywhere but聽clearly Covid聽is a risk.

"It's a novel virus, it's not at its endpoint of mutation.

"So, yes, there is聽that uncertainty that once again we could聽be having聽to聽focus on the virus聽again."