The problem in Scotland’s hospitals is not getting people admitted to them, it is that too few patients are leaving. Staff know this. Doctors from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine tell me that extra investment should not be in accident and emergency because the problem is delayed discharge.

It is advice the government ought to heed. In 2015, Shona Robison, then Health Secretary, announced that delayed discharge from hospitals, also known as bed blocking, would be eradicated by the end of that year. Like so many of the SNP government’s promises on health that claim now lies in tatters. The number of hospital beds occupied by people who are ready to be discharged has reached a record high, for the third month in a row, of 1,950 in Scotland.

Successive SNP ministers have failed to tackle delayed discharge despite being told repeatedly that the solution lies in a proper social care service to look after people when they leave hospitals. We really need to reset how society values the social care sector. There needs to be parity of esteem between health and social care and that begins with parity of pay.

Currently social care workers have been offered a pay raise of 40p taking them to £10.90 an hour – a 3.8 per cent increase. A band-three health worker, a post comparable to a social care worker, will see double that percentage pay rise.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Environmental Matters