Forth Valley hospital ward 'had to lock doors' amid unsafe staffing levels

Hospital wards in Falkirk have had to lock their doors to patients over safety concerns, it has emerged, as candidates vying to become the Falkirk area's new MP clashed over local health services.

The Scottish Labour candidate for Falkirk in the General Elections says he has concerns about the safety of patients and staff in Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert as a freedom of information request reveals “a worrying snapshot” of unsafe staffing levels.

Euan Stainbank, currently a councillor with Falkirk Council, highlighted an FOI made by the Labour Party which revealed a record of adverse incidents that have taken place on NHS Forth Valley wards, where concerns about unsafe staffing levels were flagged by staff.

Read more: Falkirk councillors' plea to end abuse and intimidation of politicians

The incidents – which both occurred on December 25, 2023 – describe wards having to initiate ‘locked door policy’ due to ‘unsafe staffing levels’.

In a description of one of the events a staff member states: “The ward had to deplete its numbers on occasion to maintain safety in other wards due to the entire mental health unit being short staffed.

"This put both staff and patients at risk and caused a safety issue which in turn led to the locked door policy being enforced from approximately 18:00.

"During this duty, two patients were unsettled and made attempts to abscond the ward, this was made difficult to manage due to staffing. No therapeutic interventions were able to be carried out during this duty.”

Scottish Labour General Election candidate Euan Stainbank, said: “I’m afraid that these two incidents are a worrying snapshot of the larger crisis happening in our NHS across Scotland at the moment.

“Dedicated NHS staff members are being overstretched and overworked and vulnerable patients are being left in unsafe situations.

“This is the reality of the SNP Government’s failure to provide our NHS with a proper workforce plan and a strategy to tackle delayed discharge.

“It is frankly laughable that the SNP claim to be the protectors of the NHS when the British Medical Association has just warned that our NHS in a permanent crisis.

“Scottish Labour will deliver a 10-year work force plan informed directly by a new National Clinical Council of healthcare professionals who will advise on service delivery, recruitment, and patient safety.”

But the SNP candidate in the election hit back, saying that NHS staffing in Scotland is at a record high with far more nurses and doctors per head in Scotland than in England.

Toni Giuliano said: “NHS funding has more than doubled under the SNP, with Scotland's Government choosing to invest more than £19 billion in health services this year in the face of Westminster austerity.

“Labour have a brass neck to talk about Forth Valley - taxpayers are still paying for Labour’s disastrous PFI contracts many years later. Think how much money our NHS would have for frontline services if Labour hadn’t forced us to make sky-high repayments through PFI. Those repayments have sky-rocketed in recent years due to inflation.

“Leading NHS doctors are expressing their horror at Labour’s plans to privatise the NHS - we should heed their concerns.

“We know exactly what fate awaits our NHS under Labour, with Keir Starmer’s looming £18 billion worth of cuts to our public services, and Wes Streeting’s creeping privatisation of the NHS in England putting Scotland’s health service in jeopardy."

The Scottish Conservative candidate, James Bundy - who is also a councillor - responded by saying: "Unfortunately I am acutely aware of the inadequate services being provided by the NHS in Scotland.

“When my Dad fell seriously ill last year, an ambulance was initially not dispatched. When eventually reaching A&E, he was left in a corridor for over five and a half hours before his fatal stroke struck. It breaks my heart that families, like my own, are suffering due to similar stories.

“All health services in the UK are suffering, showing that no political party has all the answers. Rather than focus on the politics, our focus should be on working together to come up with solutions that work for the people of Scotland.”

Commenting on the FOI, a spokesperson for NHS Forth Valley said: "We carefully plan and monitor our staffing levels across all areas however, occasionally, particularly during the winter months, we can experience unexpected absences due to staff sickness.

"In these situations, everything possible is done to arrange cover and move staff to the areas with the highest needs.

"Since April 2024, we have implemented new national legislation* designed to ensure appropriate staffing levels across health and care services and invested heavily in the recruitment of additional medical, nursing and AHP staff.

"We also encourage staff to report any concerns, including those relating to staffing levels, so that action can be taken to address these."

The full list of candidates standing for the Falkirk constituency in Thursday's general election is:

Zohaib Arshad , Alba Party: Save Grangemouth; Keith Barrow, Reform UK; James Bundy , Scottish Conservative & Unionist; Toni Giugliano , Scottish National Party (SNP); Rachel Kidd , Scottish Greens; Tim McKay , Scottish Liberal Democrats; Euan Stainbank , Scottish Labour Party; Mark Tunnicliff , Independent

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