As the Scottish Government fiddles with waiting list statistics and Neil Gray rolls back on promises to end the longest waits, it bears repeating that, this week, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine warned of a continuing crisis in A and E, by highlighting an estimated 818 excess and avoidable deaths in emergency departments.

The First Minister has been in government for the past 18 years. When will he get serious and wake up to the reality that patients and hard-working staff face? When will we see the end of eight-hour and 12-hour waits in Scotland’s NHS?